Romeo and Juliet, a rose renewed
by Diana Crescent
Summary: Romeo and Juliet are destined to fall in love...but...will their fate change. Sure! Only if three of Juliet's friends help out. Mercutiomy chara. Benvoliomy chara. and Princemy chara. Please R
1. Prologue

DISCLAIMER: I don't Romeo and Juliet so....PLEASE DON"T SUE ME. I have two cents and that's going towards my college account...when I get one. I do however own the plot, Hero, Helena, and Olivia. I also own their parents and Amandla, so, if you're gonna try and sue me over that you can just back off.  
  
Enjoy!  
  
1 Prologue  
  
A voice whispered through the wind, making the golden leaves dance a strange dance that only the Ancients could decipher.  
  
A voice, seemingly timeless, yet wise and therefore old, rose up into the night. It told of things to come. It was the voice of Destiny herself. She was known under many names. Fate, Destiny, Chance.....she still wove everyone's future with her skillful hands.  
  
All of the animals and plants stopped what they were doing, just to catch what she had to say.  
  
"Two households, both alike in honor and dignity. In fair Verona, is where it shall take place. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny. Civil blood shall make civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal blood of these two foes a pair of star-crossed lovers might take their life.  
  
Whole mis-adventured piteous overthrows do with their death, life and love bury their parents' strife. The fearful passage of their death-marked love I do see and the continuance of their parents' rage, which, but their children's end perchance could nought remove. For their destinies depend on their friends as well as their own actions, we shall see if they shall meet me soon. For destiny can change entirely if one single action is altered."  
  
The animals were not the only ones who had heard, for a grand and renown wizard was listening closely to the lady's well spun words. 


	2. Chapter 1 part one-A brawl and a plan

DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything…still…Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Also, please review. You can also email me at quidam05@hotmail.com and I'll try and respond.  
  
----Gabrielle "Gabby" Andruce  
  
  
  
Chapter One  
  
A gentle breeze blew through their hair as they watched the people of the city buy their goods at the market. Two knights, one tall and lanky with golden brown hair, he was called Gregory. The other was shorter, and stouter with black hair, his name was Sampson.  
  
"Gregory," Sampson remark in indignation, still continuing their conversation, "Upon my word, we'll not carry coals."  
  
"No," answered his friend, "for then we should be colliers."  
  
"I mean, and we be in choler, we'll draw."  
  
"Aye, while you live, draw your neck out of the collar."  
  
"I strike quickly, being moved."  
  
"But thou art not quickly moved to strike."  
  
"A dog of the house of Montague moves me."  
  
"To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand. Therefore, if though be moved thou run away."  
  
"A dog of the house of Montage moves me to stand. I will take the wall of any man or maid of Montague's."  
  
"That shows thee a weak slave, for the weakest go to the wall."  
  
"True; and therefore, women being the weaker vessels are ever thrust to the wall. Therefore I will push Montague's men from the wall, and thrust his women to the wall."  
  
"The quarrel is between our lords and us, their men."  
  
"'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant. For when I have fought with the men, I will be cruel to the maids and cut off their heads."  
  
"The heads of the maids?"  
  
"Aye, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads. Take it in what sense thou wilt."  
  
"They must take it in a sense that feel it."  
  
"Me they shall feel while I am able to stand. 'Tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh."  
  
"'Tis well that thou art not fish, if thou had, thou had been poor John. Draw thy tool! Here comes two of the house of Montagues."  
  
Both draw their rapiers and watched their two enemies.  
  
"My naked weapon is out. Quarrel, I will back thee."  
  
"How! Turn thy back and run?"  
  
"Fear me not."  
  
"No, marry. I fear thee!"  
  
"Let us take the law on our side. Let them begin it."  
  
"I will frown as they pass, let them take it as the wilt."  
  
"Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them, which is a disgrace to them if they bear it."  
  
Both the men from the Montague house were walking up, deep in conversation. The older one was tall and broad shouldered and looked to be a good warrior. He was the first to look at them, seeing Sampson bite his thumb. They both knew him well. His name was Abraham.  
  
"Do you bit your thumb at us sir?" He asked.  
  
The younger one looked at them both. He wasn't quite as tall as the other, but tall none the less. He was more lanky looking, more of a boy barely into manhood. They had heard of him, but not much. His name was Balthasar.  
  
"I do bite my thumb sir."  
  
"Do you bite your thumb at us sir?"  
  
Sampson looked at Gregory and whispered, "Is the law on our side if I say aye?"  
  
"No."  
  
"No, sir, I don not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I do bite my thumb, sir."  
  
Gregory smiled, knowing this was his line next. "Do you quarrel sir?"  
  
"Quarrel sir! No sir."  
  
"If you do sir, I am for you. I serve as good a man as you." Sampson said, trying to rile him into fighting and attacking first.  
  
"No better." Abraham said, trying not to loose his cool, which was slipping from him and fast.  
  
"Well, sir--"  
  
Sampson began but broke off when Gregory whispered. "Say 'better' here comes one of my master's kinsmen."  
  
Sampson smirked. "Better, sir."  
  
Abraham snapped. "You lie."  
  
"Draw if you be men! Gregory, remember thy slashing blow."  
  
They began to fight, the sound of metal crashing and scraping against metal could be heard throughout the market place. Benvolio, from the house of Montague, ran up to them.  
  
"Part fools! Put down your swords! You know not what you do!" He began to try and beat down their swords.  
  
Tybalt, from the house of Capulet, had heard some shouts and instantly recognized three of the voices. Two were knights of his uncle, the Lord Duke Capulet, the other Benvolio, nephew to the Lord Duke Montague.  
  
"What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds? Turn thee, Benvolio, and look upon thy death." He said, sneering and mocking Benvolio with each word.  
  
"I do but keep the peace. Put up thy sword, or manage it to part these men with me."  
  
"What, drawn and talk of peace? I hate the word as I hate Hell, all Montagues, and you! Have at thee coward!" He said, diving to attack Benvolio.  
  
They began to exchange blows, each one blocking the other with their rapiers. Tybalt was fighting out of anger, but Benvolio was fighting to save his life, because he knew that if Tybalt got the upper hand, even for a minute, he would kill him without a second thought.  
  
Citizens began to cry out in rage. It was not the first time that this had happened.  
  
One of the onlookers shouted out "Clubs, bills, and partisans! Strike! Beat them down! Down with the Capulets! Down with the Montagues!"  
  
Lord Capulet and Lady Capulet were walking together, looking at the beautiful city that they had first fallen in love in when they had hear shouts that belonged to two of their men as well as their nephew.  
  
"What noise is this!? Give me my long sword!" Capulet shouted out.  
  
"A crutch! A crutch! Why call you for a sword?" Lady Capulet asked her husband with interest.  
  
"My sword I say! Old Montague has come and flourishes his blade in front of me." He said, letting his temper take him over quickly.  
  
"Thou villain Capulet!——Hold me not! Let me go." Montague said, trying to fight away his wife's hands as she tried to hold him back.  
  
"Thou…….shalt not…….stir a…….foot to……..seek……..thy foe!" She said, still trying to hold her husband back with all her might.  
  
Lady Capulet gave her a sympathetic glance as she tried to calm her own husband, who was not near as hot tempered as the Lord Duke Montague.  
  
The citizens had brought the Prince of Verona himself to interfere with the fight. For they all knew that the Watch would not be able hold the two feuding families back. Only the Prince, with all his mercy and wisdom, had enough temper to rival Montague, Capulet, and Tybalt together, and he the power and authority to do it.  
  
He sat on his horse tall and proud, like a warrior going into battle, though that's exactly what some said he was going to do. He was young, yet wise and fair in his ruling. His golden hair was barely touched by the swift breeze that had swept through when he had arrived. His blue eyes sparkled with young life and energy, but also with something else. Anger. The air around him was so thick it crackled with it.  
  
Glancing at the Prince, Both Lady Capulet and Lady Montague knew that he had already lost his temper.  
  
"Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, profaners of this neighbor- stained steel --Will they not hear? What ho! You men, you beasts that quench the fire of your pernicious rage with purple fountains issuing from your veins, on pain of torture, from those bloody hands. Throw your distempered weapons to the ground, and hear the sentence of your moved prince. Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word, by thee, old Capulet and Montague, have thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets, And made Verona's ancient citizens cast by their grave beseeming ornaments, To wield old partisans, in hands as old, cankered with peace, to part your cankered hate. If ever you disturb our streets again, your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace. For this time, all the rest depart away. You Capulet shall go along with me, and Montague, come you this afternoon to know our further pleasure in this case to old Free-town our common judgment-place. Once more, on pain of death, all men depart."  
  
Everyone left, leaving Lord and Lady Montague with Benvolio to stand and take in all that the Prince had said.  
  
"Who set this new quarrel a broach? Speak nephew, where were you when it began?" Montague asked his sister's son.  
  
"The knights of Capulet as well as the knights of yourself were fighting when I first came here. I drew them apart and at that instant that fiery Tybalt came, with his sword unsheathed, which, as he through insults cut the sir above his head. He hurt no one while he scorned and mocked. We began to fight, more people came and fought for our part as well as their part, until the Prince came and stopped the brawl."  
  
"Where is Romeo," Lady Montague asked, think of her son, "Have you seen him today? I am glad that he was not involved."  
  
"Madame, an hour before the sun peered over the eastern border of the earth, a troubled mind bade me to walk abroad. Where, underneath a sycamore grove on the western part of the city, I saw your son. I made to go towards him, but he saw me and fled. I, thinking that he simply wanted to ponder something, did not pursue him."  
  
"He has gone there many a morning since our arrival. He has added tears among the dew and made more clouds with his deep sighs. But, as soon as the sun begins to come up he returns home and keeps to his room, instead of seeing the grand city, and it''s preparations for the up and coming festival. He makes his room as dark as he can, almost making like night." Lord Capulet said, his brow frowned in deep thought.  
  
"Do you know the cause?"  
  
"No, nor will he tell me."  
  
"Have you asked him?"  
  
"Yes, both myself and many friends. But he will tell none. He keeps to the dark and will not allow the sun to shine upon him. If we knew what troubles him so, we would gladly help."  
  
"See where he comes……If you would like, I will try and learn what grieves him so. But you must step aside."  
  
"We will leave you to him, so you may give counsel. Come love," he said, taking Lady Montague's hand and leading her away.  
  
"Good-morrow cousin!" Benvolio cried cheerfully.  
  
"Is the day so young?" Romeo said, his voice full of depression.  
  
"It is nine."  
  
"Ah me. Sad hour seem long. Was that my father that went away so fast?"  
  
"It was. What sadness lengthens my cousin's hours?"  
  
"Not having that, in which, makes them short." He replied, his voice heavy with sorrow.  
  
"In love?"  
  
"Out--"  
  
"Of love?"  
  
"Out of her favor where I am in love."  
  
"Alas! Love, seemingly so gentle should be so tyrannous and rough in reality."  
  
"Alas, that love, whose view is muffled, should, without eyes, still find his mark so exact. Where should we dine? What fray was here? Tell me not, for I know already. Here was a fray that had much to do with hate, but more with love. Love of brawling and love of hating. Misshapen chaos in well seeming forms: feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, and sick health. That is not what it is! This love I have, do not love to feel. Dost thou not laugh?" Romeo cried out in anguish.  
  
"No Romeo. I''d rather weep."  
  
"Good heart, at what?"  
  
"Thy good heart's oppression."  
  
"Why, such is love's transgression. Grief of mine own lie heavy in my breast, which thou wilt propagate, to have it pressed with more of your. This love that thou hast shown doth add more grief to too much of mine own. Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs. Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes, being vexed a sea nourished with lovers' tears. What is it else? a madness most discreet, a choking gall and a preserving sweet. Farewell, my cousin."  
  
"Wait! I will go with you! If you leave me now, you will do me a wrong."  
  
"I have lost myself. I am not here, not Romeo. He is elsewhere."  
  
"Tell me in sadness, who is it that you love?"  
  
"What? Shall I groan and tell thee?"  
  
"Groan? No. But sadly tell me who."  
  
"Bid a sick man to make his will. That's an ill word to one so ill. In sadness cousin, I do love a woman."  
  
"I aimed straight when I supposed that."  
  
"A right good mark man! She is fair."  
  
"Again I aim straight. A fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit."  
  
"In that hit you miss. She will not be hit by Cupid's arrow. She hath Dian's wit and, in strong proof of chastity well armed, from love's weak childish bow she lives unharmed. She will not stay the siege of loving terms, nor bide the encounter of assailing eyes, nor open her lap to saint- seducing gold. O, she is rich in beauty, only poor, that when she dies with beauty dies her store."  
  
"Then she hath sworn that she will live chaste?"  
  
"She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste, for beauty starved with her severity cuts beauty off from all posterity. She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair, to merit bliss by making me despair. She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow Do I live dead that live to tell it now.""  
  
"Listen to me, forget about her."  
  
"Teach me how to forget to think."  
  
"Give liberty to thy eye. Look upon other beauties."  
  
"'Tis the way to call hers exquisite, in question more. These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows being black put us in mind they hide the fair. He that is stricken blind cannot forget the precious treasure of his eyesight lost. Show me a mistress that is passing fair. What doth her beauty serve, but as a note where I may read who passed that passing fair? Farewell! Thou can not teach me to forget." Romeo said, making his way from Benvolio.  
  
"I'll pay thee doctrine, or else die in debt." Benvolio muttered walking in the opposite direction of Romeo.  
  
(A/N: I don''t exactly know what actual words they would say, so they're going to be speaking in modern English. Also, I thought I might use some of the names from Shakespeare''s other works)  
  
Four pairs of eyes had watched the morning's events. They had heard everything that had passed between each family and between all friends, as well as all enemies. To everyone, each one seemed like a boy around thirteen. Though if anyone looked closely, they would have been able to tell that they were most definitely female. But, they were dressed in a common boys garb, so no one looked at them more than once, if at all.  
  
"It's getting worse. What do we do?" The steal gray eyed one said. Her chestnut brown was hidden well under her cap.  
  
The tallest of the group looked at her with kind brown eyes. "Don't fret. We're going to help you. I have a plan that Mercutio himself would be proud of." Mischief glinted in her eye.  
  
The shortest one chuckled slightly. "My brother would probably fall down dead if he knew you were being sneaky."  
  
"I can see him now if he ever heard about you with a plan. Shock would be too much for him." The other girl said. Her blonde hair was hidden under her brown cap well. All of them caught the wistful looking in her eye when she thought of Mercutio.  
  
"Come on, let''s go somewhere so that we won't be bothered." The one with the brown eyes said.  
  
They walked toward the orchard that belonged to the Prince. They sneaked to a tall apple tree and sat down, not knowing that they had been seen.  
  
The prince, who was walking on the pathway between the apple trees had seen four boys, probably no older than fourteen, sneak into his orchard and sit down under the ancient apple tree, near by. He decided to tell them that if they wanted to get some apples then just ask. He walked over, though unnoticed, he was about to open his mouth when one of the 'boys' said in a very feminine voice, "Now, we can talk privately."  
  
The Prince decided not to say anything, but instead began to listen intently.  
  
"What's your plan Hero?" The steel gray eyed girl asked.  
  
"Juliet Capulet, what would you say to becoming a squire to Lord Montague? You could become friends with the Montagues and maybe……eventually, let it slip that you were friends with the Capulets. When they got used to that, you might could break it that you were actually a distant relative……" She said quietly.  
  
"And then after that break it to them that I'm the Duke Capulet's only heir. And then after they're done chopping me up into little pieces, I could come back and haunt you for the rest of your life." Juliet said, her steel gray eyes showing her irritation.  
  
"I'll be there backing you up." She said with a small smile.  
  
"You're insane. But it is a good idea, except telling them about the whole Capulet thing. All four of us could simple go as squires. My name will be Angelo." Juliet said with confidence.  
  
"I'll be Sebastian." Hero said, then she looked at the other two girls. "What about you Olivia and you Helena?"  
  
Olivia was just watching them while Helena tried to push her falling hair back in her cap.  
  
"I'll be Sebastian." Olivia, the blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl, said.  
  
"My name will be Demetrius." Helena said, hunter green eyes sparkling. She pulled her cap off, letting auburn hair tumble down her back.  
  
"Help me please." Olivia scooted over to her and began to pull and twist her hair until it became a bun. Taking a thick lock of hair, she wrapped the bottom of the bun so it wouldn't fall. Olivia placed the cap on her head and then sat back in her original spot.  
  
"You can back out of this if you want to. I''m not holding you to this." Juliet said to all three of them.  
  
"You never once backed out on us. We're not going to do that to you." Olivia said, embracing the girl that was more of a sister than friend.  
  
"You guys are wonderful."  
  
"Don't get all mushy on us." Helena said, squeezing her hand gently.  
  
"Come on, we better get going. You nurse is going to worry about you, and lord knows mine's already got the Watch looking for me." Hero said, sending her a smile.  
  
"Let us go to my home...Perhaps we shall see my brother. What do you think Olivia?" Helena asked the girl, chuckling slightly at the girl's embarrassment.  
  
"Let's go before we got caught." Juliet said and made her way to the hidden door that they had found three years before.  
  
"Yeah," Olivia said, suddenly remembering something, "Maybe Benvolio will be there Helena."  
  
Now it was Helena's turn to blush. She tensed up and felt the heat rise into her face.  
  
Hero simply giggled. "Looks like someone is getting a taste of their own medicine."  
  
"Hush. Don't even get me started on the way you blush ever time you see Prince Escalus."  
  
Now, the Prince himself blushed. His mouth opened a little in shocked surprise.  
  
"I-I do not!" She said, but still not able to hide the burring red on her cheeks.  
  
"Too late...You took too long in answering, your face is crimson, and...you stuttered."  
  
"Can we just go?" Juliet said, trying to hold in her laughter.  
  
"Yes...Lets." Olivia said, pushing Hero away from Helena before she could kill her.  
  
"Oh no! I forgot! Tonight my family is holding the Feast of the Purple Moon. I have to go home. I'll see you at the party!" Juliet said, scampering off towards her home.  
  
The Prince just stood there, not knowing what to think. A girl, who he had grown up with, had admitted to liking him and she was planning to stop the feuding between the Capulets and the Montagues. What was more, was that she was Hero of the Waterfront. Juliet Capulet was more than willing to help her, as well as his cousin Helena, who was in love with Benvolio Montague. And Olivia, who he knew was his cousin's friend and now, his other cousin's secret admirer.  
  
He sighed into the wind. "This is too complicated. I need some rest." 


	3. Chapter 1 part two- A suitor and the par...

1 DISCLAIMER: And yet again, I don't own anything…It all belongs to Shakespeare. Except for the plot and my three characters. Read and Review please. Also, if you want to, you can email me at quidam05@hotamil.com.  
  
2 *** Gabby  
  
3  
  
4  
  
5  
  
6 Chapter One continued  
  
  
  
Mercutio laughed as Benvolio found a way to jest at Romeo's 'ailment' each time he spoke.  
  
Romeo wore a sour look as they continued to talk.  
  
They were all standing in the shadows, trying to get away from the rising sun, when three boys, about four years their junior walked into the courtyard with smiling faces, showing a look of pure mischief.  
  
"Oy!" Mercutio called out to the one in front fondly. He walked out of the shadows, towards them.  
  
"Mercutio! Tell me, has the Watch been called upon yet?" The boy, with a very feminine voice asked as they made their way towards him.  
  
"Not yet. Where have you been Helena?" He asked, suddenly serious and protective.  
  
Romeo and Benvolio, who were still in the shadows, looked at each other. They had never heard Mercutio so serious. But they knew that Helena was his younger sister by two years.  
  
None of the three girls noticed the two young men in the shadows, watching them curiously.  
  
"Now, now, I can't tell you all my secrets. Besides, we have an idea that just might work, we just have to get it straightened out first."  
  
"Alright...Who are your friends?"  
  
He had never met any of her friends. She had been away from home for the past two years at the school for ladies in the country of Gastanon.  
  
She has just arrived home, just in time for the Feast of the Four Moons, the feast that celebrated when all the moons that surrounded Middle Othea would come out at the same time for sixteen days. Then, on the last day, the would all eclipse.  
  
Helena smirked, knowing what she would say.  
  
"The tallest is Sebastian. The one next to him is Claudio."  
  
Mercutio smirked at her, knowing she wanted him to loose his temper on her. "And what's your name?" He thought for a moment, "Lysander?"  
  
Helena smiled genuinely this time. "No, Demetrius."  
  
He smiled back at her. "But really...who are you?"  
  
"I am Olivia de Monticello. I am the daughter of the navy officer, Admiral Orlando Monticello." She said and bowed slightly.  
  
"I am Hero Brazenstar, more commonly known as Hero of Waterfront, heir to the Gracinovian seat and granddaughter to Amandla the Elven prophet who is granddaughter to Jaredun, king of all the elves." She also bowed slightly.  
  
"It is nice to meet you. Well, I suppose that I'll let you run along and plan whatever it is you're planning." Mercutio said and smiled at them innocently.  
  
"We should be going anyway. We'll see you at the party. Come on Livia!" Hero said, bowing slightly again, and made her way towards the gates of the courtyard.  
  
Olivia smiled at Helena. "I shall see you tonight at Juliet's." She whispered.  
  
Olivia then smiled at Mercutio. She turned and left the courtyard, trailing swiftly after Hero.  
  
Helena watched them leave and sighed heavily. "We have a long and strenuous road ahead." She thought.  
  
As soon as Olivia left, Helena turned and ran towards her house, trying to make sure that her Nurse didn't see her while she sneaked into the manor house.  
  
"Mercutio, as you know, my mother wanted Benvolio and I to be home early, before the hours hit one. It is half past twelve already. Unfortunately, we too must be off." Romeo said sadly.  
  
"Yes, of course." He said, his mind on other matters.  
  
Romeo and Benvolio simply smiled at him and left his courtyard.  
  
Lord Capulet sighed as he said in his private study. A servant stood behind him in the corner, always ready to do some service.  
  
He looked at the young knight before him. Count Paris's caring green eyes sparkled with their usual mirth as his fingers combed, somewhat anxiously through his dark brown hair.  
  
"But Montague is bound as well as I. In penalty alike, and 'tis not hard, I think, for men so old as we to keep the peace." The Duke Capulet said, his steel grey eyes showing premature signs of age and stress. His black hair was becoming thinner on top and grey at the temples.  
  
"Of honorable reckoning are you both, and pity 'tis you lived at odds so long. But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?" Paris asked, wanting to get off the older man's problem and onto his on.  
  
"But saying o'er what I have said before. My child is yet a stranger in the world. She hath not seen the change of sixteen years. Let two more summers wither in their pride, ere we may think her ripe to be a bride."  
  
"Younger than she are happy mothers made." Paris said, trying to convince the duke.  
  
"And too soon marred are those so early made. The earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she, she is the hopeful lady of my earth. But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart. My will to her consent is but a part. If she agrees, within her scope of choice, lies my consent and fair according voice. This night I hold an old accustomed feast, whereto I have invited many a guest. Such as I love, and you, among the store. One more, most welcome, makes my number more. At my poor house look to behold this night, earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light. Such comfort as do lusty young men feel when well-appareled April on the heel of limping winter treads, even such delight among fresh female buds shall you this night. Inherit at my house. Hear all, all see, and like her most whose merit most shall be. Which on more view, of many mine being one may stand in number, though in reckoning none. Come, go with me." Capulet said, stand up.  
  
He turned to the servant in the corner and gave him a piece of paper. "Go, sirrah, trudge about through fair Verona. Find those persons out whose names are written there, and to them say, 'My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.'" Capulet turned, leading Paris, and walked out of the room.  
  
The servant looked at the paper with a puzzled mind. He could not read a word of it, nor any word of any kind. He simply said, "Find them out whose names are written here! It is written, that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard, and the tailor with his last, the fisher with his pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am sent to find those persons whose names are here writ, and can never find what names the writing person hath here writ. I must to the learned."  
  
The servant walked out of the Capulet home and down a few streets. He came upon to gentlemen who seemed to be having an unimportant conversation.  
  
"Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning. One pain is lessened by another's anguish. Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning. One desperate grief cures with another's languish. Take thou some new infection to thy eye, And the rank poison of the old will die." The taller one said, smiling. His black hair shone in the bright sun.  
  
Though the servant did not know it, his name was Benvolio, and he was of the house of Montague.  
  
"Your plaintain-leaf is excellent for that." The other said. He had hair the color of summer wheat and eyes the color of a blue jay's feather.  
  
He was of the house of Montague as well. He was the heir to Montague himself. He was called Romeo.  
  
"For what, I pray thee?" The other asked.  
  
"For your broken shin."  
  
"Why, Romeo, art thou mad?"  
  
"Not mad, but bound more than a mad-man is. Shut up in prison, kept without my food, whipped and tormented and--God-den, good fellow." Romeo said, finally noticing the distraught servant.  
  
The servant smiled warmly at him. "God gi' god-den. I pray, sir, can you read?"  
  
"Ay, mine own fortune in my misery."  
  
"Perhaps you have learned it without book: but, I pray, can you read any thing you see?"  
  
"Ay, if I know the letters and the language."  
  
"Ye say honestly: rest you merry!"  
  
"Stay, fellow; I can read." He said, calling the servant back. He took the list from the man and began to read: "'Signior Martino and his wife and daughters; County Anselme and his beauteous sisters; the lady widow of Vitravio; Signior Placentio and his lovely nieces; Mercutio and his sister Helena; mine uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters; my fair niece Rosaline; Livia Monticello; Signior Valentio and his cousin Tybalt, Lucio and the lively Isabella.' A fair assembly: whither should they come?"  
  
"Up."  
  
"Whither?"  
  
"To supper; to our house."  
  
"Whose house?"  
  
"My master's."  
  
"Indeed, I should have asked you that before."  
  
"Now, I shall tell you without asking: my master is the great rich Capulet. And if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry!"  
  
Benvolio looked at his cousin. "At this same ancient feast of Capulet's sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so love, with all the admired beauties of Verona. Go thither; and, with unattainted eye, compare her face with some that I shall show, and I will make thee think thy swan a crow."  
  
"When the devout religion of mine eye maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires. And these, who often drowned could never die, transparent heretics, be burnt for liars! One fairer than my love! the all- seeing sun never saw her match since first the world begun."  
  
"Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by, herself poised with herself in either eye. But in that crystal scales let there be weighed your lady's love against some other maid That I will show you shining at this feast, and she shall scant show well that now shows best."  
  
Romeo looked at him and sighed deeply. "I'll go along, no such sight to be shown, But to rejoice in splendor of mine own."  
  
"Nurse, where's my daughter? Call her forth to me." Lady Capulet said kindly.  
  
Lady Capulet's black eyes showed wisdom and youth, though she was not young. Her chestnut brown hair was up, hidden by a cloth that covered her head.  
  
"Now, by my maidenhead, at fifteen year old, I bade her come. What, lamb! What,  
  
ladybird! God forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet!" Juliet's nurse called out.  
  
Juliet walked into the room. Her hair was no longer in a cap, but cascading down her back in soft, chestnut curls. Her steel grey eyes shone with happiness, as usual. She wore a long blue dress, no longer in a common boy's clothes.  
  
"How now! who calls?" She asked, her voice strong and commanding, yet soft and gentle.  
  
"Your mother."  
  
"Madam, I am here. What is your will?"  
  
Lady Capulet looked at her daughter with pride and love.  
  
"This is the matter:--Nurse, give leave awhile, We must talk in secret:--nurse, come back  
  
again. I have remembered me, thou's hear our counsel. Thou know my daughter's of a pretty age." Lady Capulet said.  
  
"Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour." The nurse said, her voice sounding like a mother hen's towards her chick.  
  
"She's not sixteen." Lady Capulet said.  
  
"I'll lay sixteen of my teeth,--And yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four-- She is not sixteen. How long is it now to Lammas-tide?"  
  
"A fortnight and odd days."  
  
"Even or odd, of all days in the year, come Lammas-eve at night shall she be sixteen. Susan and she--God rest all Christian souls!--Were of an age. Well, Susan is with God. She was too good for me but, as I said, on Lammas-eve at night shall she be sixteen. That shall she, marry; I remember it well. 'Tis since the earthquake now fourteen years; And she was weaned,-- I never shall forget it,– Of all the days of the year, upon that day. For I had then laid wormwood to my dug, sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall. My lord and you were then at Mantua. -- Nay, I do bear a brain:--but, as I said, when it did taste the wormwood on the nipple of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool, to see it tetchy and fall out with the dug! Shake quoth the dove-house: 'twas no need, I trow, to bid me trudge. And since that time it is fourteen years. For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood, She could have run and waddled all about. For even the day before, she broke her brow. And then my husband--God be with his soul! A' was a merry man--took up the child. 'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit; Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidame, The pretty wretch left crying and said 'Ay.' To see, now, how a jest shall come about! I warrant, an I should live a thousand years, I never should forget it: 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he; And, pretty fool, it stinted and said 'Ay.'"  
  
"Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace." Lady Capulet said, feeling Juliet's embarrassment.  
  
"Yes, madam: yet I cannot choose but laugh, to think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.' and yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow a bump as big as a young cockerel's stone. A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly: 'Yea,' quoth my husband, 'fallest upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age. Wilt thou not, Jule?' it stinted and said 'Ay.'"  
  
"And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I." Juliet said, she was past embarrassment and moving on to anger.  
  
"Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace! Thou was the prettiest babe that ever I  
  
nursed. An I might live to see thee married once, I have my wish."  
  
"Marry, that 'marry' is the very theme I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet, how stands your disposition to be married?" Lady Capulet said.  
  
"It is an honor that I dream not of." Juliet answered.  
  
"An honor! were not I thine only nurse, I would say thou had thy wisdom sucked from thy teat." The nurse cried out.  
  
"Well, think of marriage now. Younger than you, here in Verona, ladies of esteem, are made already mothers. By my count, I was your mother much upon these years, that you are now a maid. Thus then in brief, the valiant Paris seeks you for his love." Lady Capulet said, sending her daughter a look of seriousness.  
  
"A man, young lady! lady, such a man as all the world--why, he's a man of wax." The nurse said.  
  
"Verona's summer hath not such a flower."  
  
"Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower."  
  
"What say you? Can you love the gentleman? This night you shall behold him at our feast. Read over the volume of young Paris' face, and find delight writ there with beauty's pen. Examine every married lineament, and see how one another lends content nd what obscured in this fair volume lies. Find written in the margent of his eyes. This precious book of love, this unbound lover, to beautify him, only lacks a cover. The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride for fair without the fair within to hide. That book in many's eyes doth share the glory, that in gold clasps locks in the golden story. So shall you share all that he doth possess, by having him, making yourself no less."  
  
"No less! nay, bigger; women grow by men."  
  
"Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?"  
  
"I'll look to like, if looking liking move. But no more deep will I endart mine eye than your consent gives strength to make it fly."  
  
Suddenly, a servant came in. "Madam," He said, "the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in the pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must hence to wait. I beseech you, follow straight."  
  
"We follow thee," Lady Capulet said, sending the servant away. "Juliet, the county stays."  
  
"Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days." The nurse said, and kissed her cheek.  
  
Romeo, Benvolio, and Mercutio all walked down the streets in merriment.  
  
"What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse? Or shall we on without a apology?" Romeo asked suddenly, making himself stop.  
  
Benvolio looked at him and answered, "The date is out of such prolixity. We'll have no Cupid hoodwinked with a scarf, bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath, scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper. Nor no without- book prologue, faintly spoke after the prompter, for our entrance. But let them measure us by what they will. We'll measure them a measure, and be gone."  
  
"Give me a torch. I am not for this ambling. Being but heavy, I will bear the light." Romeo said grumpily.  
  
"Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance." Mercutio said, his voice full of joy and spirit.  
  
"Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes with nimble soles. I have a soul of lead So stakes me to the ground I cannot move." Romeo said simply, yet still darkly.  
  
"You are a lover. Borrow Cupid's wings, and soar with them above a common bound."  
  
"I am too sore enpierced with his shaft to soar with his light feathers, and so bound, I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe. Under love's heavy burden do I sink."  
  
"And, to sink in it, should you burden love. Too great oppression for a tender thing."  
  
"Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn."  
  
"If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down. Give me a case to put my visage in. A visor for a visor! What care I what curious eye doth quote deformities? Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me."  
  
"Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in, but every man betake him to his legs." Benvolio said, a smile on his face.  
  
"A torch for me. Let wantons light of heart tickle the senseless rushes with their heels, for I am proverbed with a grandsire phrase. I'll be a candle-holder, and look on. The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done." Romeo said.  
  
"Tut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word. If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stickest up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!" Mercutio said, running up the street ahead.  
  
"Nay, that's not so."  
  
"I mean, sir, in delay we waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day. Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits five times in that ere once in our five wits."  
  
"And we mean well in going to this mask. But 'tis no wit to go."  
  
"Why, may one ask?"  
  
"I dreamed a dream to-night."  
  
"And so did I."  
  
"Well, what was yours?" Romeo asked curiously.  
  
"That dreamers often lie."  
  
"In bed asleep, while they do dream things true."  
  
"O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone on the fore- finger of an alderman, drawn with a team of little atomies Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep. Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs, the cover of the wings of grasshoppers, the traces of the smallest spider's web, the collars of the moonshine's watery beams, her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film, her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat, not so big as a round little worm pricked from the lazy finger of a maid. Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, time out o' mind the fairies' coach makers. And in this state she gallops night by night through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love. Over courtiers' knees, that dream on courtesies straight, over lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees, over ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream, which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are. Sometime she gallops over a courtier's nose, and then dreams he of smelling out a suit. And sometime comes she with a tithe- pig's tail tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep, then dreams, he of another benefice. Sometime she driveth over a soldier's neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, and being thus frighted swears a prayer or two And sleeps again. This is that very Mab that plats the manes of horses in the night, and bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs, which once untangled, much misfortune bodes. This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, that presses them and learns them first to bear, making them women of good carriage. This is she--" Mercutio said, getting louder and angrier at every sentence.  
  
"Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace! Thou talkest of nothing." Romeo said, quieting him down.  
  
"True, I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain. Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, which is as thin of substance as the air and more inconstant than the wind, who woos Even now the frozen bosom of the north, and, being angered, puffs away from thence, turning his face to the dew-dropping south."  
  
"This wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves. Supper is done, and we shall come too late." Benvolio said, breaking their quietness.  
  
"I fear, too early: for my mind misgives, some consequence yet hanging in the stars shall bitterly begin his fearful date with this night's revels and expire the term of a despised life closed in my breast, by some vile forfeit of untimely death. But He, that hath the steerage of my course, direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen."  
  
"Strike, drum!" Benvolio cried out.  
  
Lord Capulet laughed as each of his guests came in. He teased the ladies and jested with the men.  
  
"Welcome, gentlemen! ladies that have their toes unplagued with corns will have a bout with you. Ah ha, my mistresses! Which of you all will now deny to dance? she that makes dainty, she, I'll swear, hath corns; am I come near ye now? Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day That I have worn a visor and could tell a whispering tale in a fair lady's ear, such as would please. 'Tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone. You are welcome, gentlemen! come, musicians, play. A hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls." He cried out to the musicians. They began to play and he smiled as people began to dance. "More light, you knaves; and turn the tables up, and quench the fire, the room is grown too hot. Ah, sirrah, this unlooked-for sport comes well. Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet. For you and I are past our dancing days. How long is't now since last yourself and I were in a mask?" He asked the man.  
  
"By your lady, thirty years." The old man of the Capulet said. He was Lord Capulet's great-uncle, more commonly known as Odd William, for he spoke of ending the feud between the Montagues. Something that no one seemed to want to do.  
  
"What, man! 'Tis not so much, 'tis not so much. 'Tis since the nuptials of Lucentio, come Pentecost as quickly as it will. Some five and twenty years. And then we masked."  
  
"'Tis more, 'tis more, his son is elder, sir. His son is thirty."  
  
"Will you tell me that? His son was but a ward two years ago."  
  
Romeo said to a serving man, "What lady is that, which doth enrich the hand of yonder knight?"  
  
The servant looked at him and then at the lady he was pointing at. "I know not, sir."  
  
Romeo looked at her, "O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiopi's ear. Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear! So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows, as yonder lady o'er her fellows shows. The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand, and, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand. Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I never saw true beauty till this night."  
  
Romeo went across the room, to watch the fair beauty from the corner that she was closest to.  
  
Her chestnut brown hair looked almost red in the lighting and her pale grey eyes looked almost smoky.  
  
Tybalt, who had been standing near the servant, looked over to where he had heard the familiar voice.  
  
"This, by his voice, should be a Montague. Fetch me my rapier, boy. What dares the slave Come hither, covered with an antic face, to fleer and scorn at our solemnity? Now, by the stock and honour of my kin, to strike him dead, I hold it not a sin."  
  
"Why, how now, kinsman! wherefore storm you so?" Lord Capulet intervened his nephew.  
  
"Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe, a villain that is hither come in spite, to scorn at our solemnity this night."  
  
"Young Romeo is it?" He said, observing the young man watch the dancers.  
  
"'Tis he, that villain Romeo."  
  
"Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone. He bears him like a portly gentleman. And, to say truth, Verona brags of him to be a virtuous and well- governed youth. I would not for the wealth of all the town here in my house do him disparagement. Therefore be patient, take no note of him. It is my will, the which if thou respect, show a fair presence and put off these frowns, and ill-beseeming semblance for a feast."  
  
"It fits, when such a villain is a guest. I'll not endure him." Tybalt said haughtily.  
  
"He shall be endured. What, goodman boy! I say, he shall. Go to! Am I the master here, or you? Go to! You'll not endure him! God shall mend my soul! You'll make a mutiny among my guests! You will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man!" Capulet said, losing what patience he had with the boy.  
  
"Why, uncle, 'tis a shame."  
  
"Go to, go to! You are a saucy boy. Is't so, indeed? This trick may chance to scathe you, I know what. You must contrary me! Marry, 'tis time. Well said, my hearts! You are a princox; go. Be quiet, or--More light, more light! For shame! I'll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts!"  
  
"Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting. I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall now seeming sweet convert to bitter gall." he said, and walked over to where he could watch Romeo.  
  
Romeo, who was looking into Juliet's eyes, whispered softly, "If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle fine is this. My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss."  
  
Juliet looked at him and blushed. Then, she whispered back, "Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this. For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss."  
  
Romeo looked at her with mischief in his dark blue eyes, "Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?"  
  
Juliet looked at him in confusion, "Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer."  
  
Romeo smiled at her confusion. "O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do. They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair."  
  
Realization dawned on Juliet, "Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake."  
  
Romeo smiled again. "Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged."  
  
He leaned down and touched his lips to hers. Heat spread like a wild fire throughout their bodies, though their kiss was as soft as an angel's wing.  
  
"Then have my lips the sin that they have took." Juliet said, her mind hazy.  
  
"Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again." He said, and kissed her again.  
  
"You kiss by the book." Juliet said, still breathless.  
  
Tybalt was watching from across the room and he began to make his way toward the couple.  
  
Hero saw this and instantly cringed at the thought of Tybalt angry. She hit Olivia and Helena on their shoulders and pointed toward Romeo and Juliet.  
  
Both let out a heart-felt sigh.  
  
Hero rolled her eyes and hit them again. She pointed toward Tybalt who was making his way across the room.  
  
Both Olivia and Helena gasped.  
  
Helena immediately took control. "Liv and I'll get Romeo and Juliet out of his sight. You handle Tybalt."  
  
"Why me?"  
  
"Because you hit hard." She said, rubbing her stinging shoulder.  
  
Olivia and Helena made their way to the couple smoothly. No one had seen them.  
  
Hero let out a deep breath and put a sweet smile on her face. She made her way, determinedly toward Tybalt.  
  
"Tybalt!" She called after she got within four feet from him.  
  
He turned toward her. "Yes, milady?" His voice was testy, and his eyes irritated.  
  
"You have not danced once this night. Come, we shall dance." She grabbed his hand and led him to the lines of the dancers.  
  
The Prince laughed at Lord Capulet's joke, and turned his eyes towards the dancing pairs. He saw a girl, about the age of fifteen dancing with Tybalt.  
  
Her raven hair went down to her waist in a flood of ripples and curls. Her eyes where the color of the brown leaves in the fall when the light hit just right, and at other times they were more like cinnamon.  
  
Olivia and Helena rounded a corner, taking the long way to the couple, but before they could reach their destination, Juliet's nurse's voice rang out.  
  
"Madam!" The nurse said, nearly rounding the corner.  
  
Romeo and Juliet jumped two feet from each other, both ways.  
  
"Madam, your mother craves a word with you." She said, when she arrived.  
  
Juliet bowed to him lightly and left him.  
  
Romeo looked at the nurse, "What is her mother?"  
  
"Marry, bachelor, her mother is the lady of the house, and a good lady, and a wise and virtuous. I nursed her daughter, that you talked withal. I tell you, he that can lay hold of her shall have the chinks." She said, and walked off.  
  
"Is she a Capulet? O dear account! my life is my foe's debt."  
  
Benvolio came up to him, "Away, begone. The sport is at the best."  
  
Helena let out a dreamy sigh. Olivia simply rolled her eyes.  
  
"Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest." Romeo replied.  
  
Lord Capulet showed everyone out, "Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone. We have a trifling foolish banquet towards. Is it e'en so? Why, then, I thank you all, I thank you, honest gentlemen. Good night. More torches here! Come on then, let's to bed. Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late. I'll to my rest." He said and left for his own room.  
  
Juliet stood by and watched everyone leave. "Come hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?"  
  
The Nurse came up to Juliet and answered."The son and heir of old Tiberio."  
  
"What's he that now is going out of door?"  
  
"Marry, that, I think, be young Petrucio."  
  
"What's he that follows there, that would not dance?"  
  
"I know not."  
  
"Go ask his name, if he be married. My grave is like to be my wedding bed."  
  
The nurse went away and came back after a short time.  
  
"His name is Romeo, and a Montague. The only son of your great enemy."  
  
"My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me, that I must love a loathed enemy."  
  
"What's this? what's this?"  
  
"A rhyme I learned even now of one I danced withal."  
  
Somewhere from inside the Capulet's manor house, someone called out, "Juliet!"  
  
"Anon, anon! Come, let's away; the strangers all are gone." 


	4. Chapter Two Prologue--the return of Lady...

Disclaimer: as much as I wish this weren't so….I don't own Romeo and Juliet. On a lighter note…..HI MOM!!! KONNICHI WA KRISTI-CHAN!  
  
  
  
  
  
Chapter 2  
  
Prologue  
  
The old wizard listened to the song that danced in the leaves.  
  
It was a voice that he had heard not too long ago.  
  
It's melody was enchanting as it sang  
  
"Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie, And young affection gapes to be his heir; That fair for which love groaned for and would die, with tender Juliet matched, is now not fair. Now Romeo is beloved and loves again, alike betwitched by the charm of looks, but to his foe supposed he must complain, and she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks. Being held a foe, he may not have access to breathe such vows as lovers use to swear; And she as much in love, her means much less to meet her new-beloved any where. But passion lends them power, time means, to meet tempering extremities with extreme sweet."  
  
The wizard shook his head, not knowing what would become of Romeo and Juliet, two children that he had watched grow up. 


	5. Chapter Two-Moonlight, weddings, and sor...

DISCLAIMER: Romeo and Juliet belong to Shake-es-spear. (Shakespeare) the stupid git. Anyway, Konnichi-wa minna!  
  
Email me at quidam05@hotmail.com and tell me what you think!, or you could take the easy road and REVIEW.---Gabby  
  
  
  
  
  
Chapter 2  
  
Romeo stood by the wall next to the Capulet's orchard. "Can I go forward when my heart is here? Turn back, dull earth, and find thy center out."  
  
Romeo climbed the large oak tree and jumped the wall.  
  
"Romeo! my cousin Romeo!" Benvolio called out. His voice higher pitched, like a nurse would call out to her ward. He was obviously drunk.  
  
Mercutio cackled, he was far more drunk than Benvolio. "He is wise. And, on my lie, hath stolen him home to bed."  
  
"He ran this way, and leaped this orchard wall. Call, good Mercutio." Benvolio said, his words, slurred.  
  
"Nay, I'll conjure too. Romeo! Humors! madman! passion! lover! Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh. Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied. Cry but 'Ay me!' pronounce but 'love' and 'dove.' Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word, one nick-name for her purblind son and heir, young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim, when King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid! He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not. The ape is dead, and I must conjure him. I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes, by her high forehead and her scarlet lip, By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh and the demesnes that there adjacent lie, that in thy likeness thou appear to us!"  
  
"And if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him."  
  
"This cannot anger him. 'Twould anger him to raise a spirit in his mistress' circle of some strange nature, letting it there stand till she had laid it and conjured it down. That were some spite: my invocation is fair and honest, and in his mistress' name I conjure only but to raise up him."  
  
"Come, he hath hid himself among these trees, to be consorted with the humorous night. Blind is his love and best befits the dark."  
  
"If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark. Now will he sit under a medlar tree, and wish his mistress were that kind of fruit as maids call medlars, when they laugh alone. Romeo, that she were, O, that she were an open et caetera, thou a poperin pear! Romeo, good night: I'll to my truckle- bed. This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep. Come, shall we go?"  
  
"Go, then; for 'tis in vain to seek him here that means not to be found."  
  
Benvolio and Mercutio left and made their way, zig-zagging down the road.  
  
"He jests at scars that never felt a wound." Romeo muttered as they left.  
  
He looked at the window, where a soft light came from. The light was the only thing, save for the moon that lit his way in the orchard.  
  
Juliet opened the window and walked out into the summer's cool night air.  
  
He sucked his breath in at her beauty. "But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief, that thou her maid art far more fair than she. Be not her maid, since she is envious. Her vestal livery is but sick and green and none but fools do wear it; cast it off. It is my lady, O, it is my love! O, that she knew she were! She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that? Her eye discourses. I will answer it. I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks. Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, as daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would sing and think it were not night. See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!"  
  
Juliet sighed out, "Ay me!"  
  
Romeo held his breath again, "She speaks. O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my head as is a winged messenger of heaven unto the white-upturned wondering eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze on him when he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds and sails upon the bosom of the air."  
  
"O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Capulet."  
  
Quietly, to himself, he whispered, "Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?"  
  
"'Tis but thy name that is my enemy. Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, and for that name which is no part of thee take all myself."  
  
Romeo could stand it no longer, "I take thee at thy word. Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized. Henceforth I never will be Romeo."  
  
"What man art thou that thus bescreened in night so stumblest on my counsel?" She said, trying not to faint or cry from shock or fear.  
  
"By a name I know not how to tell thee who I am. My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself. Because it is an enemy to thee. Had I it written, I would tear the word."  
  
Juliet instantly knew who it was and joy began to dance in her stomach. "My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound. Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?"  
  
"Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike."  
  
"How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? The orchard walls are high and hard to climb, and the place death, considering who thou art, if any of my kinsmen find thee here." She asked, curious.  
  
"With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls. For stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do that dares love attempt. Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me."  
  
"If they do see thee, they will murder thee." She whispered to him out of fear for his safety.  
  
"Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet, and I am proof against their enmity."  
  
"I would not for the world they saw thee here."  
  
"I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight. And but thou love me, let them find me here. My life were better ended by their hate, than death prorogued, wanting of thy love."  
  
"By whose direction foundest thou out this place?"  
  
"By love, who first did prompt me to inquire. He lent me counsel and I lent him eyes. I am no pilot. Yet, wert thou as farAs that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea, I would adventure for such merchandise."  
  
"Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face, else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek for that which thou hast heard me speak to-night fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny what I have spoke: but farewell compliment! Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay,' And I will take thy word. Yet if thou swearest, thou mayst prove false; at lovers' perjuries then say, Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo, if thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully. Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse an say thee nay, so thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world. In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond, and therefore thou mayst think my 'havior light. But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true than those that have more cunning to be strange. I should have been more strange, I must confess, but that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware, my true love's passion: therefore pardon me, and not impute this yielding to light love, Which the dark night hath so discovered." She said, her eyes alight with joy and love.  
  
"Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear that tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops--"  
  
"O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circled orb, lest that thy love prove likewise variable."  
  
"What shall I swear by?"  
  
"Do not swear at all. Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, which is the god of my idolatry, and I'll believe thee."  
  
"If my heart's dear love--"  
  
"Well, do not swear: although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract to-night. It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden. Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say 'It lightens.' Sweet, good night! This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.Good night, good night! as sweet repose and rest come to thy heart as that within my breast!"  
  
"O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?"  
  
"What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?"  
  
"The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine."  
  
"I gave thee mine before thou didst request it. And yet I would it were to give again"  
  
"Wouldst thou withdraw it? for what purpose, love?"  
  
"But to be frank, and give it thee again. And yet I wish but for the thing I have. My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite."  
  
Juliet's nurse begins to call from within Juliet's chamber, "Juliet!"  
  
"I hear some noise within; dear love, adieu! Anon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true. Stay but a little, I will come again."  
  
Juliet disappeared from the window above him.  
  
Romeo put his hands to his heart as he spoke, "O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard. Being in night, all this is but a dream, too flattering- sweet to be substantial."  
  
Juliet appeared again from her window. "Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed. If that thy bent of love be honorable, thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow, by one that I'll procure to come to thee, where and what time thou wilt perform the rite. And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay and follow thee my lord throughout the world."  
  
The nurse called from Juliet's room, "Madam!"  
  
"I come, anon.--But if thou meanest not well, I do beseech thee–"  
  
"Madam!"  
  
"By and by, I come:– To cease thy suit, and leave me to my grief. To- morrow will I send."  
  
"So thrive my soul--"  
  
"A thousand times good night!"  
  
Juliet disappeared yet again from the window above him. Romeo sat down upon the ground and said aloud to himself, "A thousand times the worse, to want thy light. Love goes toward love, as schoolboys from their books, but love from love, toward school with heavy looks."  
  
Juliet walked slowly out of the house through the servant's way towards him. "Hist! Romeo, hist! O, for a falconer's voice, to lure this tassel-gentle back again! Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud. Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies, and make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine, with repetition of my Romeo's name."  
  
"It is my soul that calls upon my name. How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, Like softest music to attending ears!"  
  
"Romeo!" She whispered loudly.  
  
"My dear?"  
  
"At what o'clock to-morrow shall I send to thee?"  
  
He thought for a minute, "At the hour of nine."  
  
"I will not fail: 'tis twenty years till then. I have forgot why I did call thee back."  
  
"Let me stand here till thou remember it."  
  
"I shall forget, to have thee still stand there, remembering how I love thy company."  
  
"And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget, forgetting any other home but this."  
  
"'Tis almost morning. I would have thee gone. And yet no further than a wanton's bird. Who lets it hop a little from her hand, like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, and with a silk thread plucks it back again, so loving-jealous of his liberty."  
  
"I would I were thy bird."  
  
"Sweet, so would I. Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing. Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow."  
  
She disappeared back through the door that she came out of.  
  
He sighed, "Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast! Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest! Hence will I to my ghostly father's cell, his help to crave, and my dear hap to tell."  
  
Olivia, Hero, and Helena all listened. They had seen Romeo jump the wall, trying to get away from Benvolio and Mercutio.  
  
"I never knew she was so forward." Olivia, watching as Romeo left with the dawn.  
  
"It seems that my little plan will not have to take action, but it seems that we are needed as guardians. We shall protect both Juliet...and Romeo." Hero whispered quietly, watching Juliet's room with concern.  
  
Morning found the high wizard and priest picking herbs for remedies and food. "The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night, chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light, and flecked darkness like a drunkard reels from forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels. Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye, the day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry, I must up-fill this osier cage of ours with baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers. The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb. What is her burying grave that is her womb, and from her womb children of divers kind we sucking on her natural bosom find, many for many virtues excellent, none but for some and yet all different. O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies in herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities. For nought so vile that on the earth doth live but to the earth some special good doth give, nor aught so good but strained from that fair use revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse. Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied. And vice sometimes by action dignified. Within the infant rind of this small flower poison hath residence and medicine power. For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part. Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. Two such opposed kings encamp them still in man as well as herbs, grace and rude will. And where the worser is predominant, full soon the canker death eats up that plant."  
  
Romeo came up behind the friar as he always did. "Good morrow, father."  
  
"Benedicite! What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? Young son, it argues a distempered head so soon to bid good morrow to thy bed. Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye, and where care lodges, sleep will never lie. But where unbruised youth with unstuffed brain doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign. Therefore thy earliness doth me assureThou art up-roused by some distemperature. Or if not so, then here I hit it right, our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night."  
  
"That last is true. The sweeter rest was mine."  
  
"God pardon sin! Was thou with Rosaline?"  
  
"With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no. I have forgot that name, and that name's woe."  
  
"That's my good son. But where hast thou been, then?"  
  
"I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again. I have been feasting with mine enemy, where on a sudden one hath wounded me, that's by me wounded. Both our remedies within thy help and holy physic lies. I bear no hatred, blessed man, for, lo, my intercession likewise steads my foe."  
  
"Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift. Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift."  
  
"Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set on the fair daughter of rich Capulet. As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine. And all combined, save what thou must combine by holy marriage. When and where and how we met, we wooed and made exchange of vow, I'll tell thee as we pass. But this I pray, that thou consent to marry us to-day."  
  
Friar Laurence just looked at him in shock while what Romeo said registered, "Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here! Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear, so soon forsaken? young men's love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes. Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine hath washed thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline! How much salt water thrown away in waste, to season love, that of it doth not taste! The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears, thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears. Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit of an old tear that is not washed off yet. If e'er thou was thyself and these woes thine, thou and these woes were all for Rosaline. And art thou changed? Pronounce this sentence then, women may fall, when there's no strength in men."  
  
"Thou chidest me oft for loving Rosaline."  
  
"For doting, not for loving, pupil mine."  
  
"And badest me bury love."  
  
"Not in a grave, to lay one in, another out to have."  
  
"I pray thee, chide not; she whom I love now doth grace for grace and love for love allow. The other did not so."  
  
"O, she knew well thy love did read by rote and could not spell. But come, young waverer, come, go with me, in one respect I'll thy assistant be. For this alliance may so happy prove to turn your households' rancor to pure love."  
  
"O, let us hence. I stand on sudden haste."  
  
Friar Laurence watched as the boy stumbled out of his cell in haste.  
  
"Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast." He called out.  
  
"Where the devil should this Romeo be? Came he not home to-night?" Mercutio asked Benvolio as they walked down the streets of Verona.  
  
Benvolio looked at him and answered. "Not to his father's; I spoke with his man."  
  
"Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline. Torments him so, that he will sure run mad."  
  
"Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet, hath sent a letter to his father's house."  
  
"A challenge, on my life." He shouted, somewhat amazed and yet, somewhat delighted.  
  
"Romeo will answer it."  
  
"Any man that can write may answer a letter."  
  
"Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he dares, being dared."  
  
"Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead. Stabbed with a white wench's black eye. Shot through the ear with a love-song. The very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft, and is he a man to encounter Tybalt?"  
  
"Why, what is Tybalt?"  
  
"More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion. Rests me his minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom. The very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause. ah, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the hai!"  
  
"The what?" Benvolio asked, confused.  
  
"The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes. These new tuners of accents! 'By Jesu, a very good blade! a very tall man! a very good whore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these perdona-mi's, who stand so much on the new form, that they cannot at ease on the old bench? O, their bones, their bones!"  
  
After this they saw Romeo, looking light-hearted and happy.  
  
"Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo."  
  
"Without his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in. Laura to his lady was but a kitchen-wench. Marry, she had a better love to be-rhyme her. Dido a dowdy. Cleopatra a gipsy. Helen and Hero, whom my sister and her friend get their names after, hildings and harlots. Thisbe a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night."  
  
"Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?" Romeo said, wondering what Mercutio ment.  
  
"The ship, sir, the slip. Can you not conceive?"  
  
"Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great, and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy."  
  
"That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams."  
  
"Meaning, to courtesy."  
  
"Thou hast most kindly hit it."  
  
"A most courteous exposition."  
  
"Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy."  
  
"Pink for flower."  
  
"Right."  
  
"Why, then is my pump well flowered."  
  
"Well said: follow me this jest now till thou hast worn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may remain after the wearing sole singular."  
  
"O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness." Romeo said, his smile bright.  
  
"Come between us, good Benvolio. My wits faint." Mercutio said to the black headed man.  
  
"Switch and spurs, switch and spurs; or I'll cry a match."  
  
"Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goose?"  
  
"Thou was never with me for any thing when thou was not there for the goose."  
  
"I will bite thee by the ear for that jest."  
  
"Nay, good goose, bite not."  
  
"Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting. It is a most sharp sauce."  
  
"And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?"  
  
"O here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad!"  
  
"I stretch it out for that word 'broad;' which added to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose."  
  
"Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo. Now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature. For this drivelling love is like a great natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole."  
  
"Stop there, stop there." Benvolio said as their tones became more serious and hateful.  
  
"Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair." Mercutio said, looking at him, his eyes showing anger.  
  
"Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large."  
  
"O, thou art deceived. I would have made it short. For I was come to the whole depth of my tale. And meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer." Mercutio said, becoming happy again.  
  
"Here's goodly gear!" Romeo said, laughing as he and Mercutio shook hands.  
  
Juliet's nurse walked up when she heard Romeo's voice. Her old, light blue eyes showed wisdom as she sized him up from afar.  
  
Her servant stood two feet behind her, waiting for a command.  
  
Hero, Helena, and Olivia stood far enough behind them as not to be seen, but close enough so that they could hear.  
  
"How does he do this every day?" Olivia asked, clutching the wall with her left hand and her chest in her right while she tried to slow her breathing.  
  
"He's got to have some secret." Helena said, leaning on the wall.  
  
"From now on, he has my utmost respect."  
  
"How come she isn't breathing hard from that walk? She's old enough to be my grandmother." Helena asked, looking at the woman in awe.  
  
"She spent a good many years chasing us around." Hero answered while she rubbed her exhausted feet and calves.  
  
Mercutio began to speak, making them be quiet and listen.  
  
"A sail, a sail!"  
  
"Two, two! A shirt and a smock!" Benvolio cried, making them laugh.  
  
The nurse looked at the servant and called out, "Peter!"  
  
"Anon!" He said, waiting more anxiously for her command.  
  
"My fan, Peter." She said, waving her handkerchief in front of her face.  
  
Mercutio, who had been listening, looked upon the older woman. "Good Peter," He said to the servant, "to hide her face; for her fan's the fairer face."  
  
The nurse's eyes narrowed, but she still said kindly, "God ye good morrow, gentlemen."  
  
"God ye good den, fair gentlewoman." Mercutio said, making the others chuckle.  
  
"Is it good den?" The nurse asked, sure that she was not that late.  
  
"'Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon." He said.  
  
Some of the men behind him could no longer keep in their laughter and burst out laughing.  
  
The nurse's eyes narrowed even farther. She looked at the golden haired youth who she had seen at the party just the night before.  
  
"Out upon you! what a man are you!"  
  
"One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to mar."  
  
"By my troth, it is well said; 'for himself to mar,' quoth a'? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may find the young Romeo?" She asked, wanting to make sure that it was him.  
  
"I can tell you. But young Romeo will be older when you have found him than he was when you sought him. I am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse."  
  
"You say well."  
  
"Yea, is the worst well? very well took, i' faith. Wisely, wisely." Mercutio said, his voice serious, but his actions of a jester.  
  
"If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you."  
  
Realization dawned on Romeo.  
  
"She will indite him to some supper." Benvolio said, chuckling slightly.  
  
"A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! so ho!" Mercutio cried out.  
  
"What hast thou found?" Romeo asked, confused.  
  
"No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent." He began to sing in a deep baritone voice. "An old hare hoar, and an old hare hoar, is very good meat in lent but a hare that is hoar Is too much for a score, when it hoars ere it be spent." He stopped, and turned to Romeo. Smiling, he simply said, "Romeo, will you come to your father's? we'll to dinner, thither."  
  
"I will follow you." Romeo said seriously.  
  
"Farewell, ancient lady; farewell," Mercutio called out as he turned and left with Benvolio, all the while singing, "Lady, lady, lady..."  
  
"Marry, farewell! I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant was this, that was so full of his ropery?"  
  
"A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month." Romeo said gently, trying to calm her down.  
  
"An a' speak any thing against me, I'll take him down, an a' were lustier than he is, and twenty such Jacks. And if I cannot, I'll find those that shall. Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills. I am none of his skains-mates. And thou must stand by too, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure?" She said, turning on Peter.  
  
"I saw no man use you a pleasure. If I had, my weapon should quickly have been out, I warrant you. I dare draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the law on my side."  
  
"Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word. And as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you out. What she bade me say, I will keep to myself. But first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of behavior, as they say, for the gentlewoman is young. And, therefore, if you should deal double with her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing."  
  
"Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I protest unto thee--"  
  
"Good heart, and, i' faith, I will tell her as much. Lord, Lord, she will be a joyful woman."  
  
"What wilt thou tell her, nurse? Thou dost not mark me."  
  
"I will tell her, sir, that you do protest; which, as I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer."  
  
"Bid her devise some means to come to shrift this afternoon. And there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell be shrived and married. Here is for thy pains." He said, and held out three golden coins.  
  
"No truly sir; not a penny."  
  
"Go to; I say you shall." He said, taking her time-withered hand and pressed them in her palm.  
  
"This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there."  
  
"And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall. Within this hour my man shall be with thee and bring thee cords made like a tackled stair. Which to the high top-gallant of my joy must be my convoy in the secret night. Farewell; be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains. Farewell! Commend me to thy mistress."  
  
"Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir."  
  
"What sayest thou, my dear nurse?"  
  
"Is your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say, two may keep counsel, putting one away?"  
  
"I warrant thee, my man's as true as steel."  
  
"Well, sir; my mistress is the sweetest lady--Lord, Lord! when 'twas a little prating thing:--O, there is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes and tell her that Paris is the properer man. But, I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?" She said, teasing him.  
  
"Ay, nurse. What of that? both with an R." His eyes narrowed.  
  
"Ah, mocker! That's the dog's name. R is for the--No. I know it begins with some other letter--and she hath the prettiest sententious of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it."  
  
"Commend me to thy lady." Romeo said, bowed, and left her.  
  
"Ay, a thousand times." She called. She turned to Peter and called his name.  
  
"Anon!" He answered.  
  
"Peter, take my fan, and go before and apace."  
  
Juliet paced back and forth on the path in the orchard that belonged to her family. "The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse. In half an hour she promised to return. Perchance she cannot meet him. That's not so. O, she is lame! love's heralds should be thoughts, which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams, driving back shadows over louring hills. Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love, and therefore hath the wind- swift Cupid wings. Now is the sun upon the highmost hill of this day's journey, and from nine till twelve is three long hours, yet she is not come. Had she affections and warm youthful blood, she would be as swift in motion as a ball. My words would bandy her to my sweet love, and his to me. But old folks, many feign as they were dead. Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead. O God, she comes!"  
  
The nurse and Peter walked in and Juliet ran up to her. "O honey nurse, what news? Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away."  
  
"Peter, stay at the gate."  
  
Peter bowed and left, doing as she told him.  
  
"Now, good sweet nurse,--O Lord, why lookest thou sad? Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily. If good, thou shamest the music of sweet news by playing it to me with so sour a face."  
  
"I am a-weary, give me leave awhile. Fie, how my bones ache! what a jaunt have I had!"  
  
"I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news. Nay, come, I pray thee, speak; good, good nurse, speak."  
  
"Jesu, what haste? can you not stay awhile? Do you not see that I am out of breath?"  
  
Juliet tried to stop her anger, but she was failing miserably. "How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath to say to me that thou art out of breath? The excuse that thou dost make in this delay is longer than the tale thou dost excuse. Is thy news good, or bad? answer to that. Say either, and I'll stay the circumstance. Let me be satisfied, is't good or bad?" She said, becoming frustrated.  
  
"Well, you have made a simple choice. You know not how to choose a man. Romeo! no, not he. Though his face be better than any man's, yet his leg excels all men's. And for a hand, and a foot, and a body, though they be not to be talked on, yet they are past compare. He is not the flower of courtesy, but, I'll warrant him, as gentle as a lamb. Go thy ways, wench. Serve God. What, have you dined at home?"  
  
"No, no: but all this did I know before. What says he of our marriage? What of that?"  
  
"Lord, how my head aches! what a head have I! It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces. My back o' t' other side," She said, as Juliet began rubbing, "--O, my back, my back! Beshrew your heart for sending me about, to catch my death with jaunting up and down!"  
  
"I' faith, I am sorry that thou art not well. Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?"  
  
"Your love says, like an honest gentleman, and a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome, and, I warrant, a virtuous,--Where is your mother?"  
  
"Where is my mother! why, she is within. Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest! 'Your love says, like an honest gentleman, Where is your mother?'" Juliet's temper was getting the best of her.  
  
"O God's lady dear! Are you so hot? marry, come up, I trow; Is this the poultice for my aching bones? Henceforward do your messages yourself." The nurse said, walking off.  
  
"Here's such a coil! come, what says Romeo?" Juliet asked, chasing after her.  
  
The nurse smiled and looked at the lovely girl before her, "Have you got leave to go to shrift to-day?"  
  
"I have."  
  
"Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell. There stays a husband to make you a wife. Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks, they'll be in scarlet straight at any news. Hie you to church. I must another way, to fetch a ladder, by the which your love must climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark. I am the drudge and toil in your delight, but you shall bear the burden soon at night. Go. I'll to dinner. Hie you to the cell."  
  
"Hie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell." She said, and ran towards her room to get ready.  
  
Friar Laurence stood nest to Romeo.  
  
"So smile the heavens upon this holy act, That after hours with sorrow chide us not!" he said.  
  
"Amen, amen! but come what sorrow can, it cannot countervail the exchange of joy that one short minute gives me in her sight. Do thou but close our hands with holy words, then love-devouring death do what he dare. It is enough I may but call her mine."  
  
"These violent delights have violent ends and in their triumph die, like fire and powder, which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey is loathsome in his own deliciousness and in the taste confounds the appetite. Therefore love moderately; long love doth so. Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow."  
  
Juliet entered the room where the two men stood.  
  
Romeo smiled as she walked slowly across the large room.  
  
"Here comes the lady. O, so light a foot will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint. A lover may bestride the gossamer that idles in the wanton summer air, and yet not fall; so light is vanity." He whispered.  
  
"Good even to my ghostly confessor." Juliet said, as she came and stood by Romeo.  
  
"Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both." Friar Laurence said.  
  
"As much to him, else is his thanks too much."  
  
"Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy be heaped like mine and that thy skill be more to blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath this neighbor air, and let rich music's tongue unfold the imagined happiness that both receive in either by this dear encounter." Romeo said, helding her hand close to his heart.  
  
She smiled at him and replied, "Conceit, more rich in matter than in words, brags of his substance, not of ornament. They are but beggars that can count their worth. But my true love is grown to such excess I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth."  
  
"Come, come with me, and we will make short work. For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone till holy church incorporate two in one." Friar Laurence said, and began the ceremony. 


	6. Chapter Three-King of Cat's is missing o...

Disclaimer: I don't own Romeo and Juliet…I know, I put this on every page, but I feel less like a criminal if it's there. Read, Review, Email me at quidam05@hotmail.com, and enjoy.  
  
HI MAMA!  
  
Chapter 3  
  
"I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire. The day is hot, the Capulets abroad, and, if we meet, we shall not escape a brawl. For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring." Benvolio said as he swept his black hair from his face.  
  
"Thou art like one of those fellows that when he enters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword upon the table and says 'God send me no need of thee!' and by the operation of the second cup draws it on the drawer, when indeed there is no need." Mercutio said before dipping his head into a horse's trough and flipped it back.  
  
"Am I like such a fellow?"  
  
"Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved."  
  
"And what to?"  
  
"Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou! why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more, or a hair less, in his beard, than thou hast. Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes. What eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as fun of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarreling. Thou hast quarreled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? With another, for tying his new shoes with old riband? and yet thou wilt tutor me from quarreling!" His fingers combed through his sandy blonde hair as his blue eyes watched his friend.  
  
"An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy the fee- simple of my life for an hour and a quarter."  
  
"The fee-simple! O simple!"  
  
"By my head, here come the Capulets!" Benvolio said, irritated.  
  
"By my heel," Mercutio laughed, "I care not."  
  
Tybalt and some of his men walked over to them.  
  
He whispered to one of them, "Follow me close, for I will speak to them." Then he looked toward Benvolio and Mercutio along with some of the Montague men. "Gentlemen, good den, a word with one of you."  
  
"And but one word with one of us? Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow." Mercutio said, mocking Tybalt.  
  
Tybalt's black eyes narrowed, "You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you will give me occasion."  
  
"Could you not take some occasion without giving?"  
  
"Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo,--"  
  
"Consort! what, dost thou make us minstrels? An thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords. Here's my fiddlestick; here's that shall make you dance. 'Zounds, consort!"  
  
Benvolio began to try to calm down both tempers, "We talk here in the public haunt of men. Either withdraw unto some private place, and reason coldly of your grievances, or else depart. Here all eyes gaze on us."  
  
"Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze. I will not budge for no man's pleasure." Mercutio said, his upper lip curling and nostrils flaring.  
  
Romeo came walking up to them, not noticing everyone that was there.  
  
Tybalt smirked and said to Mercutio, "Well, peace be with you, sir: here comes my man."  
  
"But I'll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery. Marry, go before to field, he'll be your follower. Your worship in that sense may call him 'man.'" Mercutio said and backed down.  
  
"Romeo, the hate I bear thee can afford no better term than this,-- thou art a villain." Tybalt said, venom laced each sound that he uttered.  
  
Romeo stopped, noticing everyone for the first time. He looked at Tybalt with pity. "Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee doth much excuse the appertaining rage to such a greeting. Villain am I none. Therefore farewell. I see thou knowest me not." He said, and turned to leave.  
  
"Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries that thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw." Tybalt said, enraged that Romeo was not so easily riled up.  
  
"I do protest, I never injured thee, but love thee better than thou canst devise, till thou shalt know the reason of my love. And so, good Capulet,--which name I tender as dearly as my own,--be satisfied." Romeo said, trying to stop Tybalt before anything started.  
  
"O calm, dishonorable, vile submission! Alla stoccata carries it away." Mercutio said, stepping in front of Romeo and drawing his rapier. "Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?"  
  
"What wouldst thou have with me?" Tybalt said, not sure what Mercutio was doing.  
  
"Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives. That I mean to make bold withal, and as you shall use me hereafter, drybeat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pitcher by the ears? Make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out."  
  
Tybalt glared and drew his own weapon. "I am for you." He said deeply.  
  
"Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up." Romeo said, trying to stop them  
  
Olivia, Helena, and Hero, who had been following Romeo for the past three hours since he was married, looked at each other.  
  
"This is bad. This is very bad." Helena said.  
  
Hero narrowed her cinnamon eyes, "Helena, go get your cousin, the Prince. Olivia and I shall deal with this."  
  
The other two girls looked at her.  
  
Helena nodded gravely and began to run like some pursued thief towards the Prince's home.  
  
Olivia looked at her and instantly felt Hero's anger. She squared her shoulders and they stepped out of the cool shadows.  
  
Mercutio looked at Tybalt with an eagerness to fight, "Come, sir, your passado." He said and began to swing his weapon towards the Capulet.  
  
"Draw, Benvolio. Beat down their weapons. Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage! Tybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath forbidden bandying in Verona streets. Hold, Tybalt! good Mercutio!" Romeo called, but was ignored.  
  
Olivia and Hero broke out into a full run. Hero grabbed Tybalt's arm and began to pull him back, while Olivia pulled Mercutio's arm. They allowed enough room for Romeo to get in-between them and hold them apart.  
  
"Let go of me boy!" Tybalt shouted, sending the boy-clad girl down to the ground.  
  
Her cap fell off and sent a raven colored shock spewed forth.  
  
"Let go of my arm!" Mercutio said in a serious voice that made Olivia's hands falter. He wrenched free from her grasp, making her fall and sent her cap flying. Her bright blonde hair stood out against the greyness of stone.  
  
Mercutio leaned forward as he got free from her grasp as did Tybalt, who's sword was still drawn.  
  
His sword stuck something. He looked up to see Mercutio's eyes wide with horror. Tybalt withdrew his sword.  
  
Olivia's blue eyes were wide with horror. "I will get the a surgeon." She whispered so that only Mercutio could hear. She got up and ran towards the Houses of Healing.  
  
"I am hurt. A plague o' both your houses! I am sped."  
  
"What? Art thou hurt?" Benvolio asked, concern written over his face.  
  
"Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch. Marry, 'tis enough." He said and started after to where Olivia had run off to.  
  
Romeo looked at his friend and whispered, "Courage man. The hurt cannot be much."  
  
"No, tis not as deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but 'tis enough and 'twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague on both your houses! 'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! A braggart, a rouge, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic!" He pulled Romeo up towards where he was walking and whispered, "Why the devil came you three between us? I was hurt under your arm."  
  
"I thought all for the best." He said, seeing that they had stopped near the Houses of Healing.  
  
"Help me into this house, Benvolio, or I shall faint. A plague on both you houses. They have made worms' meat of me. I have it, and soundly too. Your houses!" He said, crashing into the door which had stood ajar.  
  
Benvolio went up to him and placed his fingers where his pulse was.  
  
"This gentleman, the prince's near ally, ,y very friend, hath got his mortal hurt in my behalf. My reputation stained with Tybalt's slander,-- Tybalt, that an hour hath been my kinsman! O sweet Juliet, thy beauty hath made me effeminate and in my temper softened valor's steel!" Romeo whispered.  
  
Only Hero heard him, she was standing next to him.  
  
Benvolio looked up from Mercutio, "O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio's dead! That gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds, which too untimely here did scorn the earth."  
  
Romeo looked at him, happiness and gentleness faded from his eyes. "This day's black fate on more days doth depend. This but begins the woe, others must end."  
  
"Here comes the furious Tybalt back again."  
  
"Alive, in triumph! And Mercutio slain! Away to heaven, respective lenity, and fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!"  
  
Everyone turned and went to meet Tybalt. Hero stayed behind and went to Mercutio's body that Olivia was now leaning over.  
  
"Is he dead?"  
  
"I can find no pulse from his heart, but I can feel his warm breath. His pulse must be shallow."  
  
"Come, bring him to a bed and be quick!" The head of the healers said. Others were scurrying about, getting herbs and water ready for Mercutio's mending.  
  
"I shall see you later. I must stop Romeo and Tybalt's fight." Hero said, and ran after the group.  
  
"Now, Tybalt, take the villain back again, that late thou gavest me; for Mercutio's soul is but a little way above our heads, staying for thine to keep him company. Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him." Romeo said, his rapier drawn. He was circling Tybalt like a hawk circle's his prey.  
  
"Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here, shalt with him hence." Tybalt said and began to fight with Romeo.  
  
"This shall determine that" Romeo said, fighting back.  
  
Hero pushed them both away from each other. "Hold! I charge thee hold! One man hath died already!"  
  
Tybalt grabbed the "boy's" arm and threw him on the ground. "I have told thou once already! Stay back insolent child!"  
  
Hero hit the ground hard, feeling the bond in her wrist break.  
  
"This shall teach thee!" He said, and sliced deeply into her left shoulder.  
  
While he as "teaching" Hero a lesson, Romeo had come up behind him.  
  
"Tybalt!" He shouted, making the other man turn around.  
  
Romeo ran him through with the blade.  
  
Tybalt dropped to his knees and then onto his face. He was dead.  
  
"Romeo, away, be gone! The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain. Stand not amazed. The prince will doom thee death, if thou art taken: hence, be gone, away!" Benvolio cried out.  
  
"O, I am fortune's fool!"  
  
"Why dost thou stay?"  
  
Romeo looked at him for a minute and then took off running.  
  
"Which way ran he that killed Mercutio? Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he?" One citizen asked. News had traveled fast of Mercutio's death, though not that it was a mistake.  
  
"There lies that Tybalt." Benvolio said.  
  
"Up, sir, go with me. I charge thee in the princes name, obey."  
  
The prince came in with Helena, the Montagues, the Capulets, and some odd attendants.  
  
"Where are the vile beginners of this fray?" The prince asked.  
  
"O noble prince, I can discover all. The unlucky manage of the fatal brawl. There lies the man slain by young Romeo, that slew thy kinsman, the brave Mercutio."  
  
"Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother's child! O prince! O cousin! husband! O, the blood is spilt O my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true, for blood of ours, shed blood of Montague. O cousin, cousin!" Lady Capulet cried out and screeched.  
  
"Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?" The Prince asked.  
  
"Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo's hand did slay. Romeo that spoke him fair, bade him be think how nice the quarrel was, and urged withal your high displeasure. All this uttered with gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bowed could not take truce with the unruly spleen of Tybalt deaf to peace, but that he tilts with piercing steel at bold Mercutio's breast who all as hot turns deadly point to point, and with martial scorn with one hand beats cold death aside, and with the other sends back to Tybalt, whose dexterity retorts it. Romeo cries aloud, 'Hold friends! Friends part!' and swifter than his tongue, his agile arm beats down their fatal points, and 'twixt them rushes. Underneath whose arm an envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled. But by and by comes back to Romeo, who had but newly entertained revenge, and to 't they go like lightning, for, ere I could draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain. And, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly. This is the truth, or let Benvolio die."  
  
Lady Capulet cried out in rage, "He is a kinsman to the Montague. Affection makes him false. He speaks not true. Some twenty of them fought in this black strife, and all those twenty could but kill one life. I beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give. Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live."  
  
"Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio. Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?"  
  
"Not Romeo, Prince, he was Mercutio's friend. His fault concludes but what the law should end the life of Tybalt." Lord Montague said, backing his son.  
  
"And for that offence immediately we do exile him hence. I have an interst in your hate's proceeding, my blood for your rude brawls doth lie a- bleeding. But I'll amerce you with so strong a fine That you shall all repent the loss of mine. I will be deaf to pleading and excuses. Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses. Therefore use none: let Romeo hence in haste, else, when he's found, that hour is his last. Bear hence this body and attend our will. Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill."  
  
The Prince walked over to where he had left Helena. She stood sobbing in the arms of Hero. He touched her shoulder and opened his arms to her crying.  
  
Helena went to her cousin's arms and cried harder.  
  
Hero looked at the girl and sighed. "Sweet Helena do not cry. Come to the Houses of Healing after the crowd had disappeared. The elder will be waiting on you. Olivia and I will be taking care of Romeo and Juliet. Do not cry gentle coz." Hero whispered and then stole off into the shadows.  
  
Hero entered the Houses of Healing with little strength.  
  
Olivia caught her as she fell into the room where Mercutio lay.  
  
"Good Lord, Hero, what has happened."  
  
"I pulled Romeo and Tybalt apart. Tybalt got angry and threw me to the ground, breaking my wrist. He took his rapier and sliced my shoulder. Help me. Take me to the elder."  
  
Olivia called forth one of the healers.  
  
"Olivia, watch over Juliet. Tybalt was slain by Romeo and the prince has banished Romeo."  
  
Olivia nodded her head gravely. When the healer took Hero from her arms, she left the houses. She left to go and find out what was happening with Juliet as well as Romeo.  
  
"Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, towards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner as Phaethon would whip you to the west, and bring in cloudy night immediately. Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night, that runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo leap to these arms, untalked of and unseen. Lovers can see to do their amorous rites by their own beauties, or, if love be blind, it best agrees with night. Come, civil night, thou sober- suited matron, all in black, and learn me how to lose a winning match, Played for a pair of stainless maidenhoods. Hood my unmanned blood, bating in my cheeks, with thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, think true love acted simple modesty. Come, night; come, Romeo. Come, thou day in night. For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night whiter than new snow on a raven's back. Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-browed night, give me my Romeo, and, when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun. O, I have bought the mansion of a love, but not possessed it, and, though I am sold, not yet enjoyed. So tedious is this day as is the night before some festival to an impatient child that hath new robes and may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse, and she brings news. And every tongue that speaks but Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence." Juliet said as she sat at her window.  
  
The nurse walked into the room with the cords that Romeo had told her to get.  
  
"Nurse, what news? What hast thou there? The cords that Romeo bid thee fetch?"  
  
"Ay, ay, the cords." She said and threw them down.  
  
"Ay me! what news? why dost thou wring thy hands?"  
  
"Ah, well-a-day! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead! We are undone, lady, we are undone! Alack the day! he's gone, he's killed, he's dead!"  
  
"Can heaven be so envious?"  
  
"Romeo can, though heaven cannot. O Romeo, Romeo! Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!"  
  
"What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus? This torture should be roared in dismal hell. Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but 'I,' And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more than the death-darting eye of cockatrice. I am not I, if there be such an I. Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer 'I.' If he be slain, say 'I'; or if not, no. Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe."  
  
"I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,– God save the mark!--here on his manly breast. A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse. Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaubed in blood, all in gore-blood. I swooned at the sight."  
  
"O, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once! To prison, eyes, ne'er look on liberty! Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here. And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!"  
  
"O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had! O courteous Tybalt! Honest gentleman! That ever I should live to see thee dead!"  
  
"What storm is this that blows so contrary? Is Romeo slaughtered, and is Tybalt dead? My dear-loved cousin, and my dearer lord? Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom! For who is living, if those two are gone?"  
  
"Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished. Romeo that killed him, he is banished."  
  
"O God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?"  
  
"It did, it did. Alas the day, it did!"  
  
"O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! Dove-feathered raven! wolvish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of divinest show! Just opposite to what thou justly seemest, a damned saint, an honorable villain! O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell, when thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend in moral paradise of such sweet flesh? Was ever book containing such vile matter so fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell in such a gorgeous palace!"  
  
"There's no trust, no faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, all forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers. Ah, where's my man? Give me some aqua vitae. These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old. Shame come to Romeo!"  
  
"Blister'd be thy tongue for such a wish! He was not born to shame. Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit. For 'tis a throne where honour may be crowned sole monarch of the universal earth. O, what a beast was I to chide at him!"  
  
"Will you speak well of him that killed your cousin?"  
  
"Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband? Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, when I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it? But, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin? That villain cousin would have kill'd my husband. Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring. Your tributary drops belong to woe, which you, mistaking, offer up to joy. My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain. And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband. All this is comfort. Wherefore weep I then? Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death, that murdered me. I would forget it fain. But, O, it presses to my memory, like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds. 'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo--banished. That 'banished,' that one word 'banished,' hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death was woe enough, if it had ended there. Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship and needly will be rank'd with other griefs, Why follow'd not, when she said 'Tybalt's dead,' thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both, which modern lamentations might have moved? But with a rear- ward following Tybalt's death, 'Romeo is banished,' to speak that word, Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, all slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished!' There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, in that word's death; no words can that woe sound. Where is my father, and my mother, nurse?"  
  
"Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse. Will you go to them? I will bring you thither."  
  
"Wash they his wounds with tears. Mine shall be spent, when theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment. Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguiled, both you and I, for Romeo is exiled. He made you for a highway to my bed, but I, a maid, die maiden-widowed. Come, cords, come, nurse. I'll to my wedding-bed. And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!"  
  
"Hie to your chamber. I'll find Romeo to comfort you. I wot well where he is. Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night. I'll to him. He is hid at Laurence' cell."  
  
"O, find him! give this ring to my true knight, and bid him come to take his last farewell."  
  
"Romeo, come forth, come forth, thou fearful man. Affliction is enamoured of thy parts, and thou art wedded to calamity."  
  
Romeo entered at the Friar's words.  
  
"Father, what news? What is the prince's doom? What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand, that I yet know not?"  
  
"Too familiar is my dear son with such sour company. I bring thee tidings of the prince's doom."  
  
"What less than dooms-day is the prince's doom?"  
  
"A gentler judgment vanished from his lips. No body's death, but body's banishment."  
  
"Ha banishment! Be merciful, say 'death.' For exile hath more terror in his look, much more than death. Do not say 'banishment.'"  
  
"Hence from Verona art thou banished. Be patient, for the world is broad and wide."  
  
"There is no world without Verona walls, but purgatory, torture, Hell itself. Hence-banished is banished from the world, and world's exile is death. Then banished is death mis-termed, calling death banishment, thou cuttest my head off with a golden axe and smilest upon the stroke that murders me."  
  
"O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness! Thy fault our law calls death, but the kind prince taking thy part hath rushed aside the law, and turned that black word death to banishment. This is dear mercy and thou seest it not."  
  
"'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here, wher Juliet lives and every cat and dog and litle mouse, every unworthy thing live here in heaven and may look on her; but Romeo may not: more validity, more honourable state, more courtship lives in carrion-flies than Romeo. They my seize on the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand and steal immortal blessing from her lips, who even in pure and vestal modesty, still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin. But Romeo may not. He is banished. Flies may do this, but I from this must fly. They are free men, but I am banished. And sayest thou yet that exile is not death? Hadst thou no poison mixed, no sharp-ground knife, no sudden mean of death, though never so mean, but 'banished' to kill me?--'banished'? O friar, the damned use that word in hell. Howlings attend it, how hast thou the heart, being a divine, a ghostly confessor, a sin-absolver, and my friend professed, to mangle me with that word 'banished'?"  
  
"Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word."  
  
"O thou wilt speak again of banishment."  
  
"I'll give thee armor to keep off that word. Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy, to comfort thee, though banished."  
  
"Yet 'banished'? Hang up philosophy! Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, displant a town, reverse a prince's doom, it helps not, it prevails not: talk no more."  
  
"O, then I see that madmen have no ears."  
  
"How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?"  
  
"Let me dispute with thee of thy estate."  
  
"Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel. Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love, an hour but married, Tybalt murdered, doting like me and like me banished, then mightest thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair, and fall upon the ground, as I do now, Taking the measure of an unmade grave."  
  
A knock came from the door.  
  
"Arise! One knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself."  
  
"Not I. Unless the breath of heartsick groans, mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes."  
  
The knock became more urgent.  
  
"Hark, how they knock! Who's there? Romeo, arise! Thou wilt be taken. Stay awhile! Stand up."  
  
Again the knocking became more urgent and louder.  
  
"Run to my study. By and by! God's will, what simpleness is this! I come, I come!" He said as he went to the door and asked, "Who knocks so hard? Whence come you? What's your will?"  
  
The nurse said loud enough that he could hear through the door, "Let me come in, and you shall know my errand. I come from Lady Juliet."  
  
"Welcome then," He said, opening the door.  
  
"O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar, where is my lady's lord? Where is Romeo?"  
  
"There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk." Friar Laurence said, pointing to a heap on the floor.  
  
"O, he is even in my mistress' case. Just in her case! O woeful sympathy! Piteous predicament! Even so lies she, blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering. Stand up, stand up. Stand and you be a man. For Juliet's sake. For her sake, rise and stand. Why should you fall into so deep an O?"  
  
"Nurse!"  
  
"Ah sir! Ah sir! Well, death's the end of all."  
  
"Spakest thou of Juliet? How is it with her? Doth she not think me and old murderer, now that I have stained the childhood of our joy with blood removed but little from her own? Where is she and how doth she? And what says my concealed lady to our cancelled love?"  
  
"O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps. And now falls on her bed, and then starts up, and Tybalt calls. And then on Romeo cries, and then down falls again."  
  
"As if that name, shot from the deadly level of a gun, did murder her as that name's cursed hand murdered her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me, in what vile part of this anatomy doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack the hateful mansion." Romeo shouted angrily, and drew his sword.  
  
"Hold thy desperate hand. Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art. Thy tears are womanish. Thy wild acts denote the unreasonable fury of a beast. Unseemly woman in a seeming man! Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both! Thou hast amazed me, by my holy order, I thought thy disposition better tempered. Hast thou slain Tybalt? Wilt thou slay thyself? And stay thy lady too that lives in thee, by doing damned hate upon thyself? Why railest thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth? Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet in thee at once, which thou at once wouldst lose. Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit. Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all, and usest none in that true use indeed Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit. Thy noble shape is but a form of wax, digressing from the valour of a man. Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury, killing that love which thou hast vowed to cherish. Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love, mis-shapen in the conduct of them both, like powder in a skitless soldier's flask, is set afire by thine own ignorance, and thou dismember'd with thine own defense. What, rouse thee, man! Thy Juliet is alive, for whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead. There art thou happy, Tybalt would kill thee, but thou slewest Tybalt. There are thou happy too. The law that threatened death becomes thy friend and turns it to exile. There art thou happy. A pack of blessings lights up upon thy back. Happiness courts thee in her best array, but, like a misbehaved and sullen wench, thou poutest upon thy fortune and thy love. Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable. Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed, ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her. But look thou stay not till the watch be set, for then thou canst not pass to Mantua where thou shalt live, till we can find a time to blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends, beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back with twenty hundred thousand times more joy than thou wentest forth in lamentation. Go before, nurse. Commend me to thy lady, and bid her hasten all the house to bed. Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto. Romeo is coming."  
  
"O Lord, I could have stayed here all the night to hear good counsel. O, what learning is! My lord, I'll tell my lady you will come."  
  
"Do so and bid my sweet prepare to chide."  
  
"Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir. Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late." She said and left to tell Juliet.  
  
"How well my comfort is revived by this!"  
  
"Go hence; good night, and here stands all your state. Either be gone before the watch be set, or by the break of day disguised from hence. Sojourn in Mantua. I'll find out your man, and he shall signify from time to time every good hap to you that chances here. Give me thy hand, 'tis late. Farewell. Good night."  
  
"But that a joy past joy calls out on me, It were a grief, so brief to part with thee. Farewell."  
  
Lord and Lady Capulet sat in Lord Capulet's private study. Count Paris sat in front of them.  
  
"Things have fallen out, sir, so unluckily, that we have had no time to move our daughter. Look you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly, and so did I:--Well, we were born to die. 'Tis very late, she'll not come down to- night. I promise you, but for your company, I would have been a-bed an hour ago."  
  
Paris looked at him with pity. "These times of woe afford no time to woo. Madam, good night: commend me to your daughter."  
  
Lady Capulet sent him a teary smile. "I will, and know her mind early to-morrow; To-night she is mewed up to her heaviness."  
  
"Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender of my child's love. I think she will be ruled in all respects by me. Nay, more, I doubt it not. Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed, acquaint her here of my son Paris' love. And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next– But, soft! what day is this?"  
  
"Monday, my lord," Paris said.  
  
"Monday! ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon, O' Thursday let it be: o' Thursday, tell her, she shall be married to this noble earl. Will you be ready? Do you like this haste? We'll keep no great ado,--a friend or two. For, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late, It may be thought we held him carelessly, being our kinsman, if we revel much. Therefore we'll have some half a dozen friends, and there an end. But what say you to Thursday?"  
  
"My lord, I would that Thursday were to-morrow."  
  
"Well get you gone, o' Thursday be it, then. Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed, prepare her, wife, against this wedding-day. Farewell, my lord. Light to my chamber, ho! Afore me! it is so very very late, That we may call it early by and by. Good night."  
  
Olivia, who had been setting in the giant tree that was in-between Lord Capulet's private study and Juliet's room, stared at the study window in shock. She had to tell the others.  
  
As she snuck out, she saw Romeo sneak in.  
  
"Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day. It was the nightingale, and not the lark, that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear. Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree, believe me, love, it was the nightingale." Juliet said, scooting closer to the warm place that he had left.  
  
Romeo fastened his hilt onto his belt. "It was the lark, the herald of the morn, no nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. I must be gone and live, or stay and die."  
  
"Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I. It is some meteor that the sun exhales, to be to thee this night a torch-bearer, and light thee on thy way to Mantua. Therefore stay yet, thou needest not to be gone."  
  
"Let me be taken, let me be put to death. I am content, so thou wilt have it so. I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye, 'tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow, nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat the vaulty heaven so high above our heads. I have more care to stay than will to go. Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so. How is't, my soul? let's talk; it is not day."  
  
"It is, it is. Hie hence, be gone, away! It is the lark that sings so out of tune, straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. Some say the lark makes sweet division. This doth not so, for she divideth us. Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes, O, now I would they had changed voices too! Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day, O, now be gone. more light and light it grows."  
  
"More light and light; more dark and dark our woes!" He said, taking her into his arms and kissing her.  
  
Without warning, the nurse walked into the chamber. "Madam!" She said, signifying that she was there.  
  
"Nurse?" Juliet asked in a daze.  
  
"Your lady mother is coming to your chamber. The day is broke, be wary, look about." She said and left.  
  
Juliet's eyes were wide in horror. She ran to the window and tore it open. "Then, window, let day in, and let life out."  
  
"Farewell, farewell! One kiss, and I'll descend." Romeo said, climbing down, but first kissing her once more.  
  
"Art thou gone so? Love, lord, ay, husband, friend! I must hear from thee every day in the hour, for in a minute there are many days. O, by this count I shall be much in years ere I again behold my Romeo!"  
  
"Farewell! I will omit no opportunity that may convey my greetings, love, to thee."  
  
"O, thinkest thou we shall ever meet again?"  
  
"I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve for sweet discourses in our time to come."  
  
"O God, I have an ill-divining soul! Methinks I see thee, now thou art below, As one dead in the bottom of a tomb. Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale."  
  
"And trust me, love, in my eye so do you. Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!"  
  
He said, and finally left.  
  
"O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle. If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him. That is renowned for faith? Be fickle, fortune. For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long, but send him back.."  
  
Lady Capulet walked into her daughter's room and called out, "Ho, daughter! are you up?"  
  
"Who is't that calls? is it my lady mother? Is she not down so late, or up so early? What unaccustomed cause procures her hither?" Asked Juliet as she entered her room.  
  
"Why, how now, Juliet!"  
  
"Madam, I am not well."  
  
"Evermore weeping for your cousin's death? What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears? An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live. Therefore, have done, some grief shows much of love. But much of grief shows still some want of wit."  
  
"Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss."  
  
"So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend which you weep for."  
  
"Feeling so the loss, cannot choose but ever weep the friend."  
  
"Well, girl, thou weepest not so much for his death, as that the villain lives which slaughtered him."  
  
"What villain madam?"  
  
"That same villain, Romeo."  
  
Juliet thought to herself, "Villain and he be many miles asunder.– God Pardon him! I do, with all my heart." Then she said aloud, "No man like he doth grieve my heart."  
  
"That is, because the traitor murderer lives."  
  
"Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands. Would none but I might venge my cousin's death!"  
  
"We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not. Then weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua, where that same banished runagate doth live, Shall give him such an unaccustomed dram, that he shall soon keep Tybalt company. And then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied. "  
  
"Indeed, I never shall be satisfied with Romeo, till I behold him-- dead--Is my poor heart for a kinsman vexed. Madam, if you could find out but a man to bear a poison, I would temper it. That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof, Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors to hear him named, and cannot come to him. To wreak the love I bore my cousin upon his body that slaughtered him!"  
  
"Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man. But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl."  
  
"And joy comes well in such a needy time. What are they, I beseech your ladyship?"  
  
"Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child. One who, to put thee from thy heaviness, hath sorted out a sudden day of joy, that thou expectest not nor I looked not for."  
  
"Madam, in happy time, what day is that?"  
  
"Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn, the gallant, young and noble gentleman, the County Paris, at Saint Peter's Church, shall happily make thee there a joyful bride."  
  
"Now, by Saint Peter's Church and Peter too, he shall not make me there a joyful bride. I wonder at this haste, that I must wed ere he, that should be husband, comes to woo. I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam, I will not marry yet, and, when I do, I swear, It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, rather than Paris. These are news indeed!"  
  
"Here comes your father; tell him so yourself, and see how he will take it at your hands." Hre mother said coldly.  
  
Lord Capulet entered Juliet's room in a somewhat joyful mood. "When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew; but for the sunset of my brother's son it rains downright. How now! a conduit, girl? What, still in tears? Evermore showering? In one little body thou counterfeitest a bark, a sea, a wind. For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea, do ebb and flow with tears, the bark thy body is, sailing in this salt flood. The winds, thy sighs. Who, raging with thy tears, and they with them, without a sudden calm, will overset Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife! Have you delivered to her our decree?"  
  
"Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks. I would the fool were married to her grave!"  
  
"Soft! take me with you, take me with you, wife. How! Will she none? Doth she not give us thanks? Is she not proud? Doth she not count her blest, unworthy as she is, that we have wrought so worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?" Lord Capulet shouted, his temper rivaling the Prince's.  
  
"Not proud, you have, but thankful, that you have. Proud can I never be of what I hate, but thankful even for hate, that is meant love." Juliet said in cool defiance.  
  
"How now, how now, chop-logic! What is this? 'Proud,' and 'I thank you,' and 'I thank you not;' And yet 'not proud,' mistress minion, you, thank me no thankings, nor, proud me no prouds, but fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next, to go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church, or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither. Out, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage! You tallow-face!"  
  
"Fie, fie! what, are you mad?" Lady Capulet said, frightened for her daughter.  
  
Juliet knelt down on her knees, for she knew she had said the wrong thing to her father. "Good father, I beseech you on my knees, hear me with patience but to speak a word." She said, pleadingly.  
  
"Hang thee, young baggage! Disobedient wretch! I tell thee what: get thee to church o' Thursday, Or never after look me in the face. Speak not, reply not, do not answer me. My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest that God had lent us but this only child, but now I see this one is one too much, and that we have a curse in having her. Out on her, hilding!"  
  
The nurse intercepted Lord Capulet from beating his child, "God in heaven bless her! You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so."  
  
"And why, my lady wisdom? hold your tongue, good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go."  
  
"I speak no treason."  
  
"O, God ye god-den."  
  
"May not one speak?"  
  
"Peace, you mumbling fool! Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl. For here we need it not."  
  
Lady Capulet stood next to him and backed the nurse, "You are too hot."  
  
"God's bread! It makes me mad. Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play, alone, in company, still my care hath been to have her matched, and having now provided a gentleman of noble parentage, of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly trained. Stuffed, as they say, with honorable parts, proportioned as one's thought would wish a man. And then to have a wretched puling fool, a whining mammet, in her fortune's tender, to answer 'I'll not wed. I cannot love, I am too young. I pray you, pardon me.' But, as you will not wed, I'll pardon you. Graze where you will you shall not house with me. Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest. Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise. An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend. And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets, for, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee, nor what is mine shall never do thee good. Trust to't, bethink you; I'll not be forsworn." He said and left them  
  
"Is there no pity sitting in the clouds, that sees into the bottom of my grief? O, sweet my mother, cast me not away! Delay this marriage for a month, a week. Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed in that dim monument where Tybalt lies." Juliet begged her mother.  
  
"Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word. Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee." Lady Capulet said, leaving her distraught daughter.  
  
"O God!--O nurse, how shall this be prevented? My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven. How shall that faith return again to earth, Unless that husband send it me from heaven by leaving earth? Comfort me, counsel me. Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems upon so soft a subject as myself! What sayest thou? Hast thou not a word of joy? Some comfort, nurse."  
  
The nurse looked at the girl that she had raised. Something inside of her heart told her to tell her what she thought for once, in stead of what she wanted to hear. "Faith, here it is. Romeo is banished, and all the world to nothing, that he dares ne'er come back to challenge you. Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.Then, since the case so stands as now it doth, I think it best you married with the county. O, he's a lovely gentleman! Romeo's a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam, hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye as Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart, I think you are happy in this second match, for it excels your first, or if it did not, your first is dead, or 'twere as good he were, as living here and you no use of him."  
  
"Speakest thou from thy heart?" Juliet asked, something in her heart felt as though it had become lead.  
  
"And from my soul too. Or else beshrew them both."  
  
"Amen!" Juliet said quietly.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Well, thou hast comforted me marvelous much. Go in, and tell my lady I am gone, having displeased my father, to Laurence' cell, to make confession and to be absolved."  
  
"Marry, I will. And this is wisely done." The nurse said and left.  
  
"Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend! Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn, or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue which she hath praised him with above compare so many thousand times? Go, counselor. Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain. I'll to the friar, to know his remedy. If all else fail, myself have power to die."  
  
"So Juliet is to marry Paris in two days time?" Helena asked. She was sitting near Mercutio's door.  
  
She had come to the Houses of Healing the night before like Hero had said, bringing with her the Prince and Benvolio. They had learned that Mercutio was alive, and now well, after the elder performed her magic upon him.  
  
The prince had given Mercutio his punishment, twelve days in prison, without any light.  
  
"What do we do Helena? Surely to God there is some way to save Juliet of losing her precious Romeo. He was her husband first."  
  
"I don't know. I just don't know. Have you talked to Hero? Where is she?"  
  
"She– She was harmed trying to break up Romeo and Tybalt's fight. Tybalt threw her to the ground and she broke her wrist. He then sliced her a shoulder wound. She is here in the houses. The elder has cured her as well. Come, we will tell her the news."  
  
They reached the room which Hero was lying in.  
  
Olivia came in and saw Hero sitting up in bed, looking pale, but heathier. She told her of what she had learned.  
  
Hero sat in shock. "Go find Juliet. She will surely seek the friar's help. Find her, watch over her. Make sure she doesn't do anything drastic. I feel we may have to save her from herself." 


	7. Chapter Four-Things aren't going as plan...

Disclaimer: I own everything….oops, I mean…..I own nothing!!! Gomen nasai. Email me at quidam05@hotmail.com if you want. Review please! Also, thanks to those who have reviewed. Those of you that gave me a good review, I love you so much, and those of you that gave me a bad one…I'll find out where you sleep and kill you…no not really, but one question. If you don't like it so much, why are you continuing reading?  
  
  
  
Chapter 4  
  
Friar Laurence looked at the young count before him, "On Thursday, sir? The time is very short."  
  
"My father Capulet will have it so. And I am nothing slow to slack his haste." Paris said.  
  
"You say you do not know the lady's mind. Uneven is the course, I like it not."  
  
"Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death, and therefore have I little talked of love. For Venus smiles not in a house of tears. Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous that she doth give her sorrow so much sway, and in his wisdom hastes our marriage, to stop the inundation of her tears. Which, too much minded by herself alone, may be put from her by society, now do you know the reason of this haste."  
  
Friar Laurence thought to himself, "I would I knew not why it should be slowed." Then he said to Paris, "Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell."  
  
Juliet came in with a look of desperate need for council. She looked at Paris and cringed slightly. It was not a face she wanted to see...ever.  
  
Paris smiled, not noticing her cringe, and said, "Happily met, my lady and my wife!"  
  
"That may be, sir, when I may be a wife."  
  
"That may be must be, love, on Thursday next."  
  
"What must be shall be."  
  
Friar Laurence looked at her and said, "That's a certain text."  
  
"Come you to make confession to this father?" Paris asked her.  
  
"To answer that, I should confess to you."  
  
"Do not deny to him that you love me."  
  
"I will confess to you that I love him."  
  
"So will ye, I am sure, that you love me."  
  
"If I do so, it will be of more price, being spoke behind your back, than to your face."  
  
"Poor soul, thy face is much abused with tears."  
  
"The tears have got small victory by that. For it was bad enough before their spite."  
  
"Thou wrongest it, more than tears, with that report."  
  
"That is no slander, sir, which is a truth. And what I spake, I spake it to my face."  
  
"Thy face is mine, and thou hast slandered it."  
  
"It may be so, for it is not mine own. Are you at leisure, holy father, now; or shall I come to you at evening mass?"  
  
"My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now. My lord, we must entreat the time alone." Friar Laurence said, signaling for Paris to go.  
  
"God shield I should disturb devotion! Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye, till then, adieu, and keep this holy kiss." Paris said and kissed her cheek.  
  
"O shut the door! and when thou hast done so, come weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!" She cried, flinging herself to the ground.  
  
"Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief. It strains me past the compass of my wits, I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it, on Thursday next be married to this county."  
  
"Tell me not, friar, that thou hearest of this, unless thou tell me how I may prevent it. If, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help, do thou but call my resolution wise, and with this knife I'll help it presently. God joined my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands. And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo sealed, Shall be the label to another deed, or my true heart with treacherous revolt turn to another, this shall slay them both, therefore, out of thy long-experienced time, give me some present counsel, or, behold, 'twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife shall play the umpire, arbitrating that which the commission of thy years and art could to no issue of true honor bring. Be not so long to speak. I long to die, if what thou speakest speak not of remedy."  
  
"Hold, daughter, I do spy a kind of hope, which craves as desperate an execution. As that is desperate which we would prevent. If, rather than to marry County Paris, thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself, then is it likely thou wilt undertake a thing like death to chide away this shame, that copest with death himself to scape from it, and, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy."  
  
"O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris. I will take thy remedy."  
  
"Then take this vial home with thee. Bid your nurse to let you sleep on your own Wednesday night. Drink it. You shall fall into a sleep, but appear to be dead to the world. It shall be like this for two and forty hours. In that time, I shall write to Romeo, tell him of our plan, he will come and then he and I will go to where thy lie. We will wait for thee to awaken and when thou dost, he will bear thee away to Mantua. I have no other remedy for your predicament, so if thou fearest this plan, you are on your own."  
  
"Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!"  
  
"Hold. Get you gone, be strong and prosperous in this resolve, I'll send a friar with speed to Mantua, with my letters to thy lord."  
  
"Love give me strength! And strength help afford. Farewell, dear father!"  
  
Two young boys scrambled out of way and in to the shadows, so that they would not be seen.  
  
Juliet left the friar's cell looking in better spirits.  
  
The two young boys followed her to her home. They jumped the orchard wall and made their way to the oak tree that grew close to the Capulet home.  
  
Lord Capulet gave a list to one of the two servants in his study, "Go to and invite these guests to my home for my daughter's marriage."  
  
The servant bowed and left.  
  
Lord Capulet looked at the other servant, "Go and hire me twenty cunning cooks."  
  
"You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they can lick their fingers."  
  
"How canst thou try them so?"  
  
"Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers, therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me."  
  
Lord Capulet laughed, "Go, be gone."  
  
The servant bowed and left.  
  
The nurse stood in the doorway.  
  
He looked at her and sighed, "We shall be much unfurnished for this time. What, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?"  
  
"Ay, forsooth."  
  
"Well, he may chance to do some good on her, a peevish self-willed harlotry it is."  
  
"See where she comes from shrift with merry look." The nurse said, pointing out of the window, towards the gate.  
  
The stood in silence for a long time, both knew Juliet would come to talk to them first.  
  
Juliet walked into the study with a solemn look on her face.  
  
"How now, my headstrong! Where have you been gadding?" Lord Capulet asked.  
  
"Where I have learned me to repent the sin of disobedient opposition to you and your behests, and am enjoined by holy Laurence to fall prostrate here, and beg your pardon: pardon, I beseech you! Henceforward I am ever ruled by you." Juliet said, her head bowed in shame.  
  
Capulet smiled, "Send for the county; go tell him of this, I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning."  
  
"I met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell. And gave him what becomed love I might, Not step o'er the bounds of modesty."  
  
"Why, I am glad on't. This is well, stand up, this is as't should be. Let me see the county. Ay, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither. Now, afore God! This reverend holy friar, our whole city is much bound to him."  
  
"Nurse, will you go with me into my closet, to help me sort such needful ornaments as you think fit to furnish me to-morrow?"  
  
"No, not till Thursday, there is time enough." Lady Capulet said, she had walked in as Juliet was speaking.  
  
"Go, nurse, go with her, we'll to church to-morrow."  
  
The nurse and Juliet left the room, leaving the lord Duke Capulet and the lady Duchess Capulet to themselves.  
  
"We shall be short in our provision, 'tis now near night."  
  
"Tush, I will stir about, and all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife. Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her. I'll not to bed to- night. Let me alone. I'll play the housewife for this once. What, ho! They are all forth. Well, I will walk myself to County Paris, to prepare him up against to-morrow, my heart is wondrous light, since this same wayward girl is so reclaimed."  
  
"Ay, those attires are best, but, gentle nurse, I pray thee, leave me to my self to-night, for I have need of many orisons to move the heavens to smile upon my state, which, well thou knowest, is cross, and full of sin." Juliet said, trying to get the nurse out.  
  
Lady Capulet entered and Juliet inwardly sighed. "Getting Nurse away is enough, but my mother too...God help me." She thought.  
  
"What, are you busy, ho? need you my help?" lady Capulet asked.  
  
"No, madam, we have culled such necessaries as are behoveful for our state to-morrow. So please you, let me now be left alone, and let the nurse this night sit up with you. For, I am sure, you have your hands full all, in this so sudden business."  
  
"Good night, get thee to bed, and rest, for thou hast need." Lady Capulet said before she and the nurse left.  
  
"Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again. I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, that almost freezes up the heat of life. I'll call them back again to comfort me, Nurse! What should she do here? My dismal scene I needs must act alone. Come vial. What if this mixture do not work at all? Shall I be married then to-morrow morning? No, no, this shall forbid it, lie thou there, " She said, picking up her dagger, but then she sat it down again, "What if it be a poison, which the friar subtly hath ministered to have me dead, lest in this marriage he should be dishonored, because he married me before to Romeo? I fear it is, and yet, methinks, it should not, for he hath still been tried a holy man. How if, when I am laid into the tomb, I wake before the time that Romeo come to redeem me? There's a fearful point! Shall I not then be stifled in the vault to whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in and there die strangled ere my Romeo comes? Or, if I live, is it not very like, the horrible conceit of death and night, together with the terror of the place,--As in a vault, an ancient receptacle. Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, lies festering in his shroud. Where, as they say, at some hours in the night spirits resort;--Alack, alack, is it not like that I, so early waking, what with loathsome smells, and shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth, That living mortals, hearing them, run mad,--O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught. Environed with all these hideous fears? And madly play with my forefather's joints? And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud? And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone, as with a club, dash out my desperate brains? O, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body upon a rapier's point. Stay, Tybalt, stay! Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee." She said, and drank the potion down.  
  
She fell limply onto the bed and was covered by the curtains.  
  
Lord and Lady Capulet stood in the kitchen's surveying the cooks with a watchful eye.  
  
Soon, when dawn cracked through the large window that lead out to the orchard, Lord Capulet called out, "Nurse!"  
  
"Ay my lord?" She asked as she came in, her hands full of spices for the cooks.  
  
"Go and fetch Juliet. 'Tis nearly dawn."  
  
The nurse left the kitchen after giving the spices to a cook and went up the stairs to the bride to be.  
  
"Mistress! what, mistress! Juliet! fast, I warrant her, she. Why, lamb! why, lady! fie, you slug-a-bed! Why, love, I say! Madam! Sweet-heart! Why, bride! What, not a word? you take your pennyworths now; sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant, the County Paris hath set up his rest, that you shall rest but little. God forgive me, marry, and amen, how sound is she asleep! I must needs wake her. Madam, madam, madam! Ay, let the county take you in your bed, he'll fright you up, i' faith. Will it not be?" She said.  
  
But still Juliet did not stir a muscle. The nurse drew open the curtains and looked shocked. "What, dressed! And in your clothes! And down again! I must needs wake you. Lady! lady! lady! Alas, alas! Help, help! my lady's dead! O, well-a-day, that ever I was born! Some aqua vitae, ho! My lord! my lady!"  
  
Lady Capulet walked in, "What noise is here?"  
  
"O lamentable day!"  
  
"What is the matter?"  
  
"Look, look, oh, heavy day!"  
  
"O me, O me! My child, my only life, revive, look up, or I will die with thee! Help, help! Call help."  
  
Lord Capulet came in with a look of irritation, "For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come."  
  
"She's dead, deceased, she's dead; alack the day!" The nurse said, going into some sort of shock.  
  
"Alack the day, she's dead, she's dead, she's dead!" Lady Capulet cried out, her head buried in Juliet's hands.  
  
"Ha! let me see her. Out, alas! She's cold, her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff. Life and these lips have long been separated. Death lies on her like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field."  
  
Friar Laurence and Count Paris walked in. They both had looks of question on their faces.  
  
"Come, is the bride ready to go to church?" Friar Laurence asked.  
  
"Ready to go, but never to return. O son! The night before thy wedding-day hath Death lain with thy wife. There she lies, flower as she was, deflowered by him. Death is my son-in-law, death is my heir, my daughter he hath wedded. I will die, and leave him all. Life, living, all is Death's."  
  
"Have I thought long to see this morning's face, and doth it give me such a sight as this?" Paris said, sorrow plagued his voice. "Beguiled, divorced, wronged, spited, slain! Most detestable death, by thee beguiled, by cruel the quite overthrown! O love! O life! Not life, but love in death!"  
  
"Despised, distressed, hated, martyred, killed! Uncomfortable time, why camest thou now to murder, murder our solemnity? O child! O child! my soul, and not my child! Dead art thou! Alack! my child is dead. And with my child my joys are buried."  
  
Friar Laurence chided them all, "Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lives not in these confusions. Heaven and yourself had part in this fair maid, now heaven hath all, and all the better is it for the maid. Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary on this fair corse. And, as the custom is, in all her best array bear her to church. For though fond nature bids us an lament, yet nature's tears are reason's merriment."  
  
"All things that we ordained festival, turn from their office to black funeral. Our instruments to melancholy bells, our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast, our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change, our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse, and all things change them to the contrary." Lady Capulet said, dazed and unbelieving of her daughter's death.  
  
"Sir, go you in, and, madam, go with him. And go, Sir Paris. Every one prepare to follow this fair corse unto her grave. The heavens do lour upon you for some ill. Move them no more by crossing their high will." 


	8. Chapter Five-Everything is gonna be alri...

Disclaimer: Konnichi-wa to all of you! I still don't own anything, but I'm trying to fix that, unfortunately the judge is a pain in the, BUT that's another story. Email or review. Also, at the end I'm going to put personal thank-yous up, after I get a lot in.  
  
  
  
Chapter 5  
  
  
  
  
  
Romeo sighed as he though of his wife, "If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, my dreams presage some joyful news at hand. My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne. And all this day an unaccustomed spirit lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts. I dreamt my lady came and found me dead– Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think!– And breathed such life with kisses in my lips, that I revived, and was an emperor. Ah me! how sweet is love itself possessed, when but love's shadows are so rich in joy!"  
  
He turned and saw his knight Balthasar come towards him, still wearing boots. "News from Verona!--How now, Balthasar! Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar? How doth my lady? Is my father well? How fares my Juliet? That I ask again. For nothing can be ill, if she be well."  
  
"Then she is well, and nothing can be ill. Her body sleeps in Capel's monument, and her immortal part with angels lives. I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault, and presently took post to tell it you. O, pardon me for bringing these ill news, since you did leave it for my office, sir." Balthasar said quietly, his eyes full of sorrow for his friend and lord.  
  
"Is it even so? Then I defy you, stars! Thou knowest my lodging, get me ink and paper, and hire post-horses. I will hence to-night." Romeo said, his eyes drained of love and caring  
  
"I do beseech you, sir, have patience. Your looks are pale and wild, and do import some misadventure."  
  
"Tush, thou art deceived. Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do. Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?"  
  
"No, my good lord."  
  
"No matter, get thee gone, and hire those horses. I'll be with thee straight."  
  
Balthasar bowed and left.  
  
"Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night. Let's see for means, O mischief, thou art swift to enter in the thoughts of desperate men! I do remember an apothecary, a hag, a midwife – and hereabouts she dwells,– which late I noted in tattered weeds, with overwhelming brows, culling of simples. Meager were her looks, sharp misery had worn her to the bones. Noting this penury, to myself I said 'An if a man did need a poison now, whose sale is present death in Mantua, here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.' O, this same thought did but forerun my need. And this same needy man must sell it me. As I remember, this should be the house. Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut. What, ho! apothecary!"  
  
An old woman came out of the hut. "Who calls so loud?" She asked in a scratchy, ancient voice.  
  
"Come hither, woman. I see that thou art poor. Hold, there is forty ducats, let me have a dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear as will disperse itself through all the veins that the life-weary taker may fall dead and that the trunk may be discharged of breath as violently as hasty powder fired doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb."  
  
"Such mortal drugs I have. But Mantua's law is death to any he that utters them."  
  
"Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness, and fearest to die? Famine is in thy cheeks, need and oppression starveth in thine eyes, contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back. The world is not thy friend nor the world's law; the world affords no law to make thee rich. Then be not poor, but break it, and take this."  
  
"My poverty, but not my will, consents."  
  
"I pay thy poverty, and not thy will."  
  
"Put this in any liquid thing you will, and drink it off; and, if you had the strength of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight."  
  
"There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls, doing more murders in this loathsome world, than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell. I sell thee poison. Thou hast sold me none. Farewell, buy food, and get thyself in flesh. Come, cordial and not poison, go with me to Juliet's grave. For there must I use thee."  
  
Olivia sat in the tree, above Friar Laurence's herb garden.  
  
Friar John, Laurence's apprentice came up to the older man's cell door, "Holy Franciscan friar! brother, ho!"  
  
Friar Laurence called out warmly, "This same should be the voice of Friar John. Welcome from Mantua, what says Romeo? Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter."  
  
"Going to find a bare-foot brother out, one of our order, to associate me, here in this city visiting the sick, and finding him, the searchers of the town, suspecting that we both were in a house where the infectious pestilence did reign, sealed up the doors, and would not let us forth. So that my speed to Mantua there was stayed."  
  
"Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?"  
  
"I could not send it,--here it is again,– Nor get a messenger to bring it thee, So fearful were they of infection."  
  
Olivia did all she could to keep from gasping and screaming in horror. She did not know how to save Juliet from Paris now.  
  
"Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood, the letter was not nice but full of charge of dear import, and the neglecting it may do much danger. Friar John, go hence. Get me an iron crow, and bring it straight Unto my cell."  
  
"Brother, I'll go and bring it thee." He said and left.  
  
"Now must I to the monument alone. Within three hours will fair Juliet wake, she will beshrew me much that Romeo hath had no notice of these accidents. But I will write again to Mantua, and keep her at my cell till Romeo come. Poor living corse, closed in a dead man's tomb!" He said and went back into his cell.  
  
Olivia dropped down from the tree and sped away to the Houses of Healing.  
  
"Are you telling us that Romeo married Juliet?" The Prince asked.  
  
Mercutio and Benvolio stared at the three girls in front of them.  
  
"Yes." Helena said. She had just finished explaining everything to the three men in front of them  
  
"You did get past that part didn't you, for time is very important." Hero asked.  
  
"Well yes, but if Laurence is going to keep Juliet, why does it matter?" Benvolio asked.  
  
"Because Romeo knows! I saw Balthasar speed off towards Mantua after Juliet was put into the tomb. He does not know of Juliet taking the potion, because Balthasar did not know of it. He will come and kill himself, for his only wish is to be with Juliet." Helena said.  
  
"We must act fast!" Mercutio said. He was supposed to leave the next day anyway.  
  
"I know not when Romeo will get here, but we must go in haste." Olivia said, her eyes showed fear.  
  
"Why do you three want to save Romeo?" The prince asked.  
  
"Because if Juliet discovers Romeo dead, she will kill herself as well." Hero said, her voice full of sadness at the thought.  
  
"Then let us go." The prince said, leading the way.  
  
Paris stood in a tomb belonging to the Capulets. "Give me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand aloof:Yet put it out, for I would not be seen. Under yond yew-trees lay thee all along,holding thine ear close to the hollow ground. So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread, being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves, but thou shalt hear it, whistle then to me, as signal that thou hearest something approach. Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go."  
  
The boy bowed, though shaking with fear at the though of being in the churchyard alone.  
  
Paris went down the stairs towards Juliet's place. He was going there to place flowers at her feet, when the boy whistled.  
  
"The boy gives warning something doth approach.What cursed foot wanders this way to-night, to cross my obsequies and true love's rite? What with a torch! Muffle me, night, awhile."  
  
Romeo and Balthasar entered the room with a torch.  
  
"Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron. Hold, take this letter early in the morning. See thou deliver it to my lord and father. Give me the light: upon thy life, I charge thee, whatever thou hearest or seest, stand all aloof, and do not interrupt me in my course. Why I descend into this bed of death is partly to behold my lady's face. Do not pry in what I shall intend to do, by heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint and strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs. The time and my intents are savage- wild, more fierce and more inexorable far than empty tigers or the roaring sea."  
  
"I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you."  
  
"So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that, live, and be prosperous, and farewell, good fellow."  
  
Balthasar left, leaving him in the cold room, full of the lifeless forms.  
  
Paris stepped forward from the shadows after seeing that it was the banished Montague that murdered Juliet's cousin. "Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague! Can vengeance be pursued further than death? Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee, obey and go with me for thou must die."  
  
"I must indeed; and therefore came I hither. Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man, fly hence, and leave me, think upon these gone. Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth, put not another sin upon my head, by urging me to fury, O, be gone! By heaven, I love thee better than myself. For I come hither armed against myself. Stay not, be gone. Live, and hereafter say, a madman's mercy bade thee run away."  
  
"I do defy thy conjurations, and apprehend thee for a felon here."  
  
"Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!" Romeo said.  
  
They began to fight, exchanging blow for blow. Romeo saw an opening and took it, stabbing Paris.  
  
"If thou be merciful," he coughed out, "Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet." Paris's green eye rolled back into his head and his breath stopped.  
  
"In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face. Mercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris! What said my man, when my betossed soul did not attend him as we rode? I think he told me Paris should have married Juliet. Said he not so? Or did I dream it so? Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet, to think it was so? O, give me thy hand, one writ with me in sour misfortune's book! I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave. A grave? O no! A lantern, slaughtered youth, for here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes this vault a feasting presence full of light. Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interred."  
  
Romeo laid Paris in the tomb and went over to Juliet.  
  
"How oft when men are at the point of death have they been merry! Which their keepers call a lightning before death. O, how may I call this a lightning? O my love! my wife! Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty. Thou art not conquered. Beauty's ensign yet is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, and death's pale flag is not advanced there. Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet? O, what more favor can I do to thee, than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain to sunder his that was thine enemy? Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet, why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous, and that the lean abhorred monster keeps thee here in dark to be his paramour? For fear of that, I still will stay with thee. And never from this palace of dim night depart again, here, here will I remain \pard bkmkstart 5_46_3_46_110with worms that are thy chamber- maids. O, here will I set up my everlasting rest, and shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain to engrossing death! Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavory guide! Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on the dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark! Here's to my love!" He said, opening the vial.  
  
Six figures burst through the door, causing him to turn around before he could drink the poison.  
  
"Don't do anything!" Mercutio's voice rang through the tomb.  
  
"Mercutio?!" Romeo called out.  
  
"Yea, it is I, as well as Benvolio and Prince Escalus. As well as Juliet's friends, Helena, Hero, and Olivia." He said, running up to where Romeo was.  
  
"Benvolio said that you were dead." He breathed out.  
  
"And so I thought he was, but good Olivia and the elder checked, he was alive, but barely." Benvolio said.  
  
"The elder used her magic to heal him." The prince said.  
  
"I am glad that you are alive, but my wife is not. Death still caresses her cheek."  
  
"That's just it!" Hero said happily, "It doesn't."  
  
"What?"  
  
"No, Juliet was being made to marry Paris. Not wanting to she went to Friar Laurence and he gave her a sleeping potion, making her appear to be dead to the world, though she still lived. We knew that you had not gotten Laurence's letter, so we came down here in great haste. If you wait but three minutes, Juliet should wake. Laurence's letter said that you were to come and get her and take her back to Mantua." Olivia explained.  
  
Hero watched her friend's lifeless form in wonder. Juliet's fingers began to move and then her whole hands.  
  
"Watch your love gentle Romeo, watch her awaken." Hero said.  
  
Everyone looked at Juliet as she began to move and eventually sit up.  
  
"Romeo," she muttered, barely opening her eyes.  
  
When she opened her eyes all the way, after letting them come into focus, she saw all seven people.  
  
"How did you three know?" Juliet asked the three girls.  
  
"We've been keeping watch over you two since we first saw you kiss at your father's feast." Hero said gently.  
  
Juliet turned bright red.  
  
"Not then." Olivia said, "Though I do admit, I never knew you were so forward. I'm talking about early Monday morning on the balcony."  
  
"I have an idea, but I'm going to need all of your--"  
  
He stopped as Friar Laurence walked in.  
  
"Good Friar! I must ask you to go get the Watch." The Prince said.  
  
The friar bowed and left, not knowing what had happened with Romeo and Juliet.  
  
"As you were saying..." Hero said, looking at him.  
  
"Yes, as I was saying. I have a plan. Benvolio, you and Helena go and summon the Montagues. Mercutio, you and Olivia summon the Capulets. Bring both families here."  
  
All four of them bowed and left.  
  
"Romeo, pour out that poison. Juliet, take his dagger."  
  
Both did as they were told.  
  
"Now, Romeo, lie down as though you had drunken the poison."  
  
Romeo did as he was told.  
  
"Juliet, I shall dip the dagger in Paris's blood, but you must hold it as though you had stabbed yourself."  
  
Juliet gave the dagger to the prince. He dipped the dagger in a large puddle of blood and gave it back to her.  
  
"Now, do not show yourselves to be alive until I tell you. You may rest for now. Come sweet Hero, let us leave these two alone for now."  
  
The prince and Hero stood outside together until they saw the watch coming.  
  
Hero looked at him, "I shall tell them to prepare."  
  
The prince waited for every one to arrive and then led them down to where Romeo and Juliet were. Hero had gone into the shadows.  
  
"Friar Laurence, tell us their story." The prince said in a stern voice.  
  
The friar told the entire story. From where he told Romeo that he would marry them up until now.  
  
"Helena, would you please tell your story?" The prince asked his younger cousin.  
  
Helena began to tell everything that she knew. From talking of ending the feud to discovering that Romeo had not received his letter.  
  
"Thank you, that will be all." He said, making sure she didn't go too far.  
  
The Montagues and the Capulets were all in tears.  
  
Lord Montague went up to Lord Capulet, "I offer thee peace. I will raise a statue of my son's wife that will be of pure gold. It will stand as long as there is a Verona."  
  
"Romeo can stay in my family's tomb. Husbands and Wives should not be parted in death." Capulet said.  
  
"Good, now that the feud is dead, you two can get up now."  
  
Romeo and Juliet stood, much to everyone's wonder.  
  
The prince began to explain the plan that he had come up with.  
  
"Now, just because the feud is over, doesn't mean anything. There is still the matter of punishment." Everyone's face became fearful, "Romeo is no longer banished, but now his punishment is greater. Romeo, you must love, honor, and cherish the lady Juliet for the rest of thy life."  
  
Romeo smiled, "I accept."  
  
"Mercutio, for fighting Tybalt, you must marry the lady Olivia. And you must love her for the of your life."  
  
Mercutio looked at the blushing girl next to him, "I welcome the punishment most readily."  
  
"Benvolio, for fighting with Tybalt as well, you must marry the lady Helena and love her for the rest of your life."  
  
"I accept the punishment with an eager heart." Benvolio said, making Helena blush crimson.  
  
"And, last but not least, Lady Hero, for disappearing for such a long time. You need a better guardian. There is only one person I trust with that responsibility."  
  
He walked over to the nervous girl. She was bitting her lip so hard that she could taste blood. She didn't know who he was going to pair her up with. Hundreds of people were coming to mind. "Let's see, there's Gregory, Lord Capulet's man, Sampson, Capulet's man, Benedict, Lord Montague's man.....Who is it going to be" She wondered.  
  
He looked at her and whispered, "I will be thy guardian, as well as thy husband, if thou want my hand as much as I want yours."  
  
Hero smiled, her fear disappeared, and threw her arms around his neck. "Yes," She said, after kissing him soundly.  
  
"Friar Laurence, we will go to your cell where you will perform three ceremonies. Benvolio's, Mercutio's, and mine."  
  
Friar Laurence smiled. "As you wish, your majesty." 


	9. Epilogue--New arrivals and a great endin...

Disclaimer: I hope you are enjoying the story, it's almost over…I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry… I hope you like it. Please Read and Review. Yet again, I still do not own Romeo and Juliet. More's the pity. Thank you for reading. Also, if you want a sequel, you better tell me. I'll write one if enough of you ask. I think I have a pretty good idea for one. Please email me at quidam05@hotmail.com. I would love to hear from you. I'll also email you back, and even help you with your own fanfics if you want.  
  
Thank you all for your wonderful support. I would personally like to thank my English teacher who gave the class the assignment of rewriting Romeo and Juliet the way we wanted. I never would have done this if it wasn't for her. I would also would like to thank her for being so enthused about the play to get me interested in Shakespeare. I would also like to thank my mother, because she did a lot of my chores and put up with it while I wrote this for class. I love her very much and she's my favorite person. Thank you all who reviewed. Even the ones who sent flames. You're review mean a lot to me.  
  
Thank you for reading that. I'm sitting here blubbering like a baby.  
  
~~~Gabrielle Andruce  
  
  
  
Epilogue  
  
Lord and Lady Montague, Lord and Lady Capulet, Romeo, Admiral and Lady Monticello, Mercutio, Benvolio, Lord and Lady Tehran (Helena's parents), Lord and Lady Brazenstar, King Escalus, as well as Friar Laurence sat in the great hall of Escalus's castle. It had been eleven months since the ending of the feud. They were all nervous.  
  
Suddenly the hall doors opened. The girls' nurses came in with smiles on their faces.  
  
Juliet's nurse stepped forward, "Lord Romeo, Juliet is fine. Now, I think it is time that you met your children."  
  
A maid came forward with a two bundles in her arms.  
  
"A son and a daughter." The nurse said as he took the baby from the maid.  
  
"What are their names?" Lady Capulet asked her son-in-law.  
  
"Angelo and Geneva." He said, remembering the alias that Juliet had gone under when she was dressed as a boy and a name that Juliet was completely in love with.  
  
Olivia's nurse stepped forward. "Lord Mercutio, Olivia is doing just fine. Bring the child in." She said loud enough for the maid outside the door to hear."  
  
The maid came in.  
  
"You have a daughter." She said when Mercutio took the baby.  
  
"What are you going to name her?" Admiral Monticello asked.  
  
"Adela." He said, thinking about how Olivia had loved that name.  
  
Helena's nurse stepped forward. "Lord Benvolio, Helena is fine. Bring in the child."  
  
Again, a maid came in.  
  
"You have a son."  
  
Benvolio took the child.  
  
"What are you going to name him?" Lord Tehran asked.  
  
"Demetrius." He said, also remembering Helena's masquerade name.  
  
Hero's nurse finally stepped forward. "Your highness, Queen Hero is doing superbly. Bring in the children."  
  
A maid with two bundles came in.  
  
"You also had a son and daughter."  
  
Lord Brazen star watched as Escalus took the children. "What are you going to name them?"  
  
"Sebastian and....Amandla." He said, thinking of Hero's fake name as well as her grandmother.  
  
TWO WEEKS LATER  
  
All four couples were sitting and talking.  
  
Mercutio was holding Adela. Benvolio was holding Demetrius. Romeo was holding Geneva and Juliet was holding Angelo. Hero was holding Amandla while Escalus was holding Sebastian. Helena and Olivia were watching their husbands with their children.  
  
"Who would have thought?" Helena said suddenly.  
  
"Thought what?" Benvolio asked his wife.  
  
"That two minutes could make all the difference in the world."  
  
"Don't think about it Nell." He said.  
  
"She's right though." Mercutio said, holding his daughter closer.  
  
"Destiny just decided that this story needed a happy ending." Olivia said.  
  
"You're right. Destiny wanted these six to be born. Besides, every romance story needs a happy ending.." Juliet said.  
  
Romeo and Escalus smiled at their  
  
"Who said that it was the ending? It's only the beginning." Hero said. She said as she held her child closer.  
  
  
  
The End 


End file.
